Ex Parte Anderson et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

May 8, 2012

10623030 (B.P.A.I. May. 8, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
__________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
__________

Ex parte KIMBERLY D. ANDERSON, MICHAEL J. GARVEY,
MELISSA C. PUTZER, TIMOTHY J. PROBST, and
ERIC D. JOHNSON
__________

Appeal 2011-001137
Application 10/623,030
Technology Center 3700
__________

Before TONI R. SCHEINER, ERIC GRIMES, and STEPHEN WALSH,
Administrative Patent Judges.

GRIMES, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 involving claims to an ink jet-
printed absorbent article, which the Examiner has rejected as obvious. We
have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Claims 1-18 and 33-36 are on appeal. Claim 1 is representative and is
directed to an absorbent article that includes an image printed by ink jet
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printing, while the article is moving at a speed of at least 100 feet per minute
(fpm), in at least two colors of ink (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) at a
resolution of about 100 dpi, and where the colored inks “applied at
maximum threshold” have specified coverage area ratios: at least 3% for
cyan, at least 5% for magenta, and at least 6% for yellow and black; the
claim defines a coverage area ratio as “the percentage of any area in the
image which is covered by the corresponding cyan, yellow, magenta or
black colored ink applied thereto” (claim 1). The full text of claim 1 is
reproduced in the Claims Appendix of the Appeal Brief.
The Examiner has rejected claims 1-13, 15-18, and 33-36 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Yeo1 and Nomura2 (Answer 3), and has rejected
claim 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on Yeo, Nomura, and Schleinz3
(Answer 7). The same issue is dispositive with respect to both rejections.
The Examiner finds that Yeo discloses an article meeting most of the
limitations of claim 1, but lacks “the specific colored inks in a specific
coverage percentage area values” (Answer 4). However, the Examiner finds
that “Yeo does allow for the pigment to be used in the claimed range as set
forth in col. 2, lines 59-60” (id.). The Examiner concludes that “it would
have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to modify Yeo with the desired colors in the desired
coverage ratio since the general concept of providing pigmentation in the
claim range has been established by Yeo” (id. at 4-5).

1 Yeo, US 5,503,076, Apr. 2, 1996
2 Nomura et al., US 6,680,784 B1, Jan. 20, 2004
3 Schleinz et al., US 5,612,118, Mar. 18, 1997
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The Examiner also finds that Yeo does not teach “an image resolution
of 100 dpi” (id. at 5), but Nomura “discloses high speed printing with a low
image resolution” (id. at 5), and concludes that “[o]ne would be motivated to
modify the image of Yeo to have the resolution of Nomura for an excellent
quality image and efficient print control technology since both references are
concerned with the effective printing of images on substrates” (id.).
Appellants contend that the Examiner erred in finding that Yeo would
have made obvious the recited coverage ratios because the section pointed to
by the Examiner “refers only to the composition of the colored adhesive inks
used in Yeo” (Appeal Br. 6), whereas the coverage ratios recited in claim 1
refer to the area of the image covered by a given color (id. at 6-7), which
depends on “the dpi used to print a particular color, the speed at which the
printed component is printed, and the total area of that portion of the image
over which the color is printed” (id. at 7).
Appellants also argue that “there is no reason evident in Yeo or
Nomura et al. from which one skilled in the art would find it obvious to print
images at a low resolution (e.g., 100 dpi) onto a component moving [at] a
high line speed (i.e., 100 fpm)” (id. at 8-9). In support of their position,
Appellants point to a declaration submitted by the inventors under 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.1324 (Appeal Br. 9).
The Declaration states that, prior to the present invention, images
were printed onto absorbent articles in an off-line process at a resolution of

4 Declaration under 37 C.F.R. § 1.132 signed by all of the inventors,
submitted Jan. 15, 2007 (included in the Evidence Appendix of the Appeal
Brief).
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“about 300 dpi to about 600 dpi or even higher” (Declaration ¶ 4). The
Declaration states that when printing on an article moving at manufacturing
line speed (id. at ¶ 5), “[c]onventional wisdom dictated that to maintain the
image quality of the graphic, the resolution of the graphic image would have
to at least stay the same (e.g. 300 to 600 dpi) at higher line speeds” (id. at
¶ 6). The Declaration states that, contrary to this expectation, the inventors
found that “high quality images could be produced on absorbent articles
moving at line speeds of 30.5 meters per minute (100 feet per minute) or
greater using ink jet printing with a resolution of about 100 dots per inch
(dpi)” (id. at ¶ 9).
“In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the examiner bears the
initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of obviousness.” In re
Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532 (Fed. Cir. 1993). “After evidence or argument
is submitted by the applicant in response, patentability is determined on the
totality of the record, by a preponderance of evidence with due consideration
to persuasiveness of argument.” In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed.
Cir. 1992).
In this case, we agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not
shown, by a preponderance of the evidence of record, that Yeo and Nomura
would have made obvious either the resolution (100 dpi) or coverage area
ratios required by claim 1. With regard to the requirement for printing at a
resolution of about 100 dpi, the Examiner points to Nomura’s disclosure of
printing at different resolutions in standard image quality mode (240 dpi),
high speed mode (120 dpi), and very high speed mode (90 dpi) (see Nomura,
col. 1, ll. 15-18). However, as Appellants have pointed out (Appeal Br. 7),
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Nomura’s disclosure is in the context of a dot-matrix printer (see Nomura,
col. 4, ll. 1-28), not ink jet printing on an absorbent article moving at a speed
of at least 100 feet per second.
Appellants have provided a declaration stating that absorbent articles
were conventionally printed with images at resolutions of 300-600 dpi, that
conventional wisdom dictated that at least this resolution would be required
to print on absorbent articles moving at manufacturing line speed, and that it
was surprisingly found that a resolution of 100 dpi provided high quality
images on absorbent articles moving at speeds of 100 fps or greater. The
Examiner has not disputed the facts stated in the Declaration, or provided
contrary evidence to support the position that a skilled worker would have
reasonably expected a resolution of 100 dpi to be adequate to successfully
print an image on an absorbent article moving at 100 fps. We therefore
conclude that this aspect of the rejection is not supported by a preponderance
of the evidence of record.
In addition, the Examiner has not shown that the cited references
would have made obvious the coverage area ratios recited in claim 1. The
Examiner points to Yeo’s disclosure at column 2, lines 59-60 (Answer 4),
but as Appellants have pointed out (Appeal Br. 6), this passage relates to the
concentration of the ink used in Yeo’s method, not the coverage area ratio as
defined in claim 1. The sentence reads: “The colored adhesive inks used to
bond the two layers together comprise, on a dry weight basis, from about 50
to about 99.5 percent of a polymer which is soluble or dispersible in water or
an organic solvent and from about 0.5 to about 50 percent of a pigment”
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(Yeo, col. 2, ll. 54-60). The Examiner has not persuasively explained why
this disclosure would have made obvious the coverage area ratios of claim 1.
The Examiner’s alternative rationale is that it would have been
obvious to use any desired colors in any desired coverage ratio(s) based on
“the general concept of providing pigmentation in the claim range . . . [as]
established by the Yeo” reference (Answer 5). This reasoning, however, is
not adequate to show that a skilled worker would have reasonably
considered achieving the recited coverage area ratios, when printing at the
recited resolution, on a component moving at the recited speed, to have been
desirable, within the skill of the art, or otherwise obvious within the meaning
of 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The Examiner relies on Schleinz only to meet an additional limitation
of claim 14 (Answer 7), and points to nothing in Schleinz to make up for the
deficiencies of Yeo and Nomura that are discussed above. We therefore
reverse both of the rejections on appeal.

REVERSED

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