Appeal 2007-2292
Application 10/038,796
Shytles US 5,125,246 Jun. 30, 1992
Kuen US 5,386,595 Feb. 7, 1995
Sommers US 5,693,401 Dec. 2, 1997
Claims 17-19, 25, 27, 30 and 31 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
102(b) as being anticipated by Kuen. Claims 25 and 27 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sommers.
We refer to the Briefs and the Answer for a complete exposition of the
respective positions of the Appellants and the Examiner. We affirm the
Examiner’s anticipation rejection; however, we reverse the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection. Our reasoning follows.
§ 102(b) Rejection over Kuen
Appellants argue claims 25, 27, and 30 separately. Dependent claims
17-19 and 31 depend from claim 30 and are grouped together therewith.
Thus, we select claim 30 as the representative claim on which we decide this
appeal for rejected claims 17-19, 30, and 31, which grouping of claims are
argued together.
Independent claim 25 is drawn to a method for securing the
engagement of personal wear article fastening components including
arranging, engaging, and contracting steps relative thereto.
Appellants do not contend that Kuen fails to describe, at least
implicitly, arranging, and engaging method steps for the fastening
components thereof during the donning/wearing of a fastenable wear article,
which arranging and engaging steps of Kuen substantially correspond to the
arranging and engaging steps of appealed claim 25. Indeed, like Appellants,
Kuen discloses, inter alia, hook, and loop type fastening components used
with wearable articles for securing the garment in place on a wearer (Kuen;
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