Appeal 2007-2967
Application 10/274,827
Claims 16-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over
Flieger in view of Bozich and Kik.
DISCUSSION
Background
Hot melt adhesives, which are generally applied while in
the molten or liquid state are, solid at room temperature.
Typically, these adhesives are provided in the form of blocks
and because of the nature of these materials, particularly the
pressure sensitive hot melts, there are problems associated with
handling and packaging them. The solid adhesive blocks not
only stick or adhere to hands or mechanical handling devices
but also to each other. They also pick up dirt and other
contaminants. Additionally, certain applications which require
high tack formulations result in blocks that will deform or cold
flow unless supported during shipment.
The need and advantages for providing tackless or non-
blocking hot melt adhesives are apparent and various ways of
accomplishing this have been developed. While most of these
prior art methods have provided some degree of improvement
in the packaging and handling of hot melt adhesives, they have
suffered by virtue of either the need to unwrap or otherwise
unpackage the hot melt or, in the cases of coated hot melts
which are added directly to the melting pots, by virtue of the
contamination resulting from the build-up over time of large
quantities of the packaging materials in the
melt pot and application equipment.
(Spec. 1.)
The claimed invention addresses these problems by encasing the hot-
melt adhesive “within a multi-layer film . . . [that] is meltable together with
the film and blendable into the molten adhesive” (Spec. 4). “Multi-layer
films may be made by the coextrusion of multiple polymer film resins into a
3
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