This is the class for woven, knitted, nonwoven, or felt article claimed as a fabric, having structural integrity resulting from forced interassociation of fibers, filaments, or strands, the forced interassociation resulting from processes such as weaving, knitting, needling hydroentangling, chemical coating or impregnation, autogenous bonding (i.e., heat- and/or pressure-promoted welding or solvent bonding) or felting, but not articles such as paper, fiber-reinforced plastic matrix materials (FRP), or other fiber-reinforced materials wherein fibers are present only as a filler material.
LINES WITH OTHER CLASSES
This class is an integral part of Class 428 (after subclass 223). It incorporates all the definitions and rules as to subject matter of Class 428.
This is not the location for a woven or knitted fabric which is no more than, respectively, the product of a loom or knitting machine which has not been further treated. Such a product of a loom is classified in Class 139, subclasses 420+. Such a product from a knitting machine is classified in Class 66, subclasses 169+.
This is the location for a woven or knitted fabric which has been subjected to further treatment after having been removed, respectively, from the loom or knitting machine, and all treated and untreated nonwoven fabrics, except those treated by a drying process or a chemical modification which effects chemical reaction within the material composing the woven, knitted, or nonwoven fabric. A fabric which has been dyed or subjected to chemical modification effecting reaction
within the material composing the fabric is classified in Class 8, except where the chemical modification results in converting the material composing the fabric to carbon. Carbon fabrics, per se, are classified in Class 423, subclasses 447.1+.
This is not the location for nonwoven sheets produced by wet-laying fiber slurries on a screen (i.e., papers). Papers, per se, are classified in Class 162, subclasses 100+.
Fiber-reinforced plastic matrix materials (FRP) or fiber-reinforced inorganic matrix materials, per se, are classified in Class 428, subclasses 292.1+.