Appeal 2007-2107
Application 10/190,123
Claims 3, 4, 9-12, 15-18, and 21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Broskow in view of Fisher, Jackson, and
Marco (Answer 5).
Appellant contends that claim 1 on appeal requires advancing the web
with formed carriers remaining connected in both rows and ranks, and
Jackson does not teach partial slitting for the purpose of improving the
performance of upstream processing (Br. 16).
Appellant contends that it was not known to perform downstream
separation of connected ranks of carriers, and Jackson does not teach
modification of the stamping process by removing the slitting operation
some distance from the punch press (Br. 17). Appellant further contends
that there is no “connecting reference” to lead one to combine the teaching
of Jackson with Broskow and Fisher (Br. 17).
Appellant contends that Jackson does not address the problem
addressed by Appellant, and does not teach where the final slitting should
occur relative to the punching process (Reply Br. 6-8, 11).
The Examiner contends that Jackson teaches that it is generally more
efficient to process material in wider webs, and that wandering and other
problems are avoided by keeping the web portions together as a full width
web until complete separation near the winding station (Answer 7).
Accordingly, the issue presented from the record in this appeal has
been agreed upon by Appellant and the Examiner, and we agree: namely,
whether it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill to have punched
rows and ranks of carriers in a single wide continuous web, followed by
separation of the single wide continuous web into individual webs each
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013