Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to applicant amendment received on 12/15/2025:
Amendments of Claims 20 to 26 are acknowledged.
Replacement sheets for Drawings are acknowledged.
Amendments to the Specification are acknowledged.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 20 to 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Goodrich (US 5667871) in view of Talbot (US 4105724).
Regarding Claim 20:
Goodrich discloses a paper packaging product comprising:
a first sheet of slit paper having a slit pattern that upon expansion a plurality of slits form a plurality of cells that include land regions that are inclined with respect to a plane of the unexpanded first sheet of slit paper, wherein said plurality of slits extend transverse to a length in a machine direction of said first sheet of slit paper (Column 4, lines 36, 37, Figure 6 shows the slit sheet before expanding and can take the form of a single sheet in a continuous roll, and the parallel rows of slits are transverse to the machine direction of the continuous roll, the sheet is expandable in the direction in which it is unrolled from the continuous roll, thus providing a handling convenience at the time of the wrapping process. Figures 10 and 11 show the expanded material and annotated Figure 11 shows the direction, plane and angle)
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a second sheet of slit paper layered on said first sheet of slit paper, said first sheet and said second sheet being expanded to form a pair of interlocking adjacent expanded sheets of slit packaging material (Column 4, lines 26-27, The roll can be formed of a plurality of layers of sheets, such that upon unrolling, at least a pair of sheets are unrolled together),
said first sheet of slit paper being made from a kraft paper having a weight within a range of 30 to 90 lbs. per 3,000 square feet and said second sheet of slit paper being made from a kraft paper having a weight within a range of 30 to 90 lbs. per 3,000 square feet (Column 2, lines 21 to 32, the sheets are made from preferably, 60 to about 70 pound Kraft paper, made from recycled corrugated cardboard),
said second sheet of slit paper having a slit pattern that upon expansion a plurality of slits form a plurality of cells having land regions that are inclined with respect to the plane of the unexpanded second sheet of slit paper sheet (Since the sheets are similar the second sheet has similar land regions, and angle in reference to the plane) and,
said first sheet land regions of said first sheet to have having an inclination angle in the range from about 50 to 85 degrees in the machine direction along the length of the expanded sheet (Column 3, lines 51 and 52, the angle is most preferable is the range from 50 to 65 degrees).
said paper packaging product cushioning an object or item packaged with said paper packaging product with said first expanded sheet layered on said second expanded sheet and with said second sheet land regions contacting said first sheet land regions (Figure 5 shows an object 42 being packaged and cushioned by multiple layers of the expanded packaging product).
Goodrich does not disclose that the land regions of said plurality of cells of said second sheet of slit paper having a different inclination angle than said inclination angle of said first sheet land regions of said plurality of cells of said first sheet of slit paper,
the first expanded sheet being layered on said second expanded sheet with said second sheet land regions contacting said first sheet land regions such as to adjoin while inhibited nesting due to said inclination angle of said second sheet land regions being different from said inclination angle of said first sheet land regions; and
the paper packaging product cushioning an object or item packaged with said paper packaging product with said first expanded sheet layered on said second expanded sheet and with said second sheet land regions contacting said first sheet land regions such as to adjoin while inhibited nesting due to said inclination angle of said second sheet land regions being different from said inclination angle of said first sheet land regions.
Talbot teaches a similar paper material as Goodrich, and using it to build an efficient contact packing by placing unit layers of the cellular material superimposed upon each other, in opposing directions producing a mirror-image effect layer by layer maintaining the tension of the cellular sheet material keeping the cells open (Column 3, lines 43 to 49); this can be seen on a composite image formed of annotated Figure 11 forming a first layer and a mirror image of Figure 11 representing the second layer with the cellular material in the opposite direction;
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As it can be seen, the plurality of slits of the second sheet of slit paper will have having second sheet land regions that have a different inclination angle than said inclination angle of said first sheet land regions of said plurality of slits of said first sheet of slit paper, in particular the inclination angles on the first sheet would be mirror image of the angle, substantially reversed of the second sheet; the inclination angle on the first sheet can be considered “forward” while the angle on the second sheet can be considered “backwards” so the first sheet and the second sheet will have the land regions on a crisscross pattern, so, the crisscross pattern of the first sheet will have the land areas leaning in the forward direction and the crisscross pattern of the second sheet will have the land areas leaning in the backward direction. As can be seen above, when the first and second layer are placed in contact with each other the first and second sheet land regions would interlock with each other but not completely nest on each other since the angles are different.
As shown on the figure bellow, when the first expanded sheet layered on the second expanded sheet that is mirror-image of the first, as for the teachings of Talbot, the second sheet land regions will contact the first sheet land regions such as to adjoin and at the same time inhibiting nesting of one sheet inside the other and forming a “thicker” packaging product due to the inclination angle of the second sheet land regions being different from the inclination angle of the first sheet land regions, the tension of the expended sheets keeping the shape of the cells; the inclination angle of the first sheet land regions and the inclination angle of the second sheet land regions create a crisscross pattern.
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Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate to Goodrich the teachings of Talbot and for building an efficient and thicker contact packing by minimizing nesting, place unit layers of the cellular material superimposed upon each other in opposing directions producing a mirror-image effect layer by layer, generating land regions on the first sheet of a substantially reversed inclination for the land regions of the second sheet so the sheets are prevented to wholly nest on each other.
Regarding Claims 21 and 22:
As already mentioned above, the inclination angle of the second sheet land regions is substantially reversed, substantially a mirror image, from the inclination angle of the first sheet land regions.
Regarding Claim 23:
Goodrich discloses that the inclination angle of the first sheet land regions is angled forward in said machine direction (Figure 3, lands 20, Column 7, lines 34 to 36).
Regarding Claims 24 to 26:
As already mentioned above, the inclination angle of said first sheet land regions and said inclination angle of said second sheet land regions create a crisscross pattern, the first sheet land regions can be considered leaning in a forward direction and the second sheet land regions leaning in a backward direction.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/15/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant argues that there is no teaching nor rational basis to somehow seek to combine the teachings of Talbot with that of Goodrich because Talbot pertains to a wholly unrelated technology to that of Goodrich. The Examiner disagrees with this argument because the reference is reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor, in this case producing a layered expanded slit material with the lands having different inclination angles to prevent nesting and obtain a thicker expanded layered material.
The Applicant also argues about how the material is supposed to be used, but the Examiner notes that the claims are directed towards the paper packaging product, not towards the method of using it.
The Applicant also argues that the combination of Goodrich in view of Talbot would require adjacent layers to be stretched and expanded with different expansion devices, and the Examiner admits that could be true, but the claims are directed towards the paper packaging product, not towards the method of using it.
The Examiner notes that the limitation added to Claim 20 regarding “said paper packaging product cushioning an object or item packaged with said paper packaging product” corresponds to the intended use of the material, and intended use in an apparatus claim did not distinguish over the prior art apparatus if no structure is disclosed that differentiates the claimed apparatus from the prior art. It was rejected just because Goodrich actually discloses using the paper packaging product to wrap an object.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. In particular Miller (US 4550046), Buhlmann (US 4501707), Fig 15, Hickey (US 4832228) and Pasch (US 55002271) could have been used for a proper rejection since all teach having a second slit sheet placed in the opposite direction of the first slit sheet resulting in generating land regions on the first sheet of a substantially reversed inclination for the land regions of the second sheet.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDUARDO R FERRERO whose telephone number is (571)272-9946. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-7:00.
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/EDUARDO R FERRERO/Examiner, Art Unit 3731
/ROBERT F LONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3731