Appeal No. 94-3359
Application 07/941,566
a starting point in our evaluation of whether or not a prima
facie case of obviousness is established by the prior art, as is
our burden.
Claims 1 through 12 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as
the subject matter claimed therein would have been prima facie
obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time
appellants' invention was made from the combined disclosures of
Minsk and IBM considered with certain admissions in appellants'
specification.
Minsk discloses a method for preventing the formation
of color fog or stain in photographic emulsions (column 1, lines
15 through 17). Color fog or stain in photographic silver halide
emulsions is formed when the developers, reducing agents which
convert the silver halide components to elemental silver, react
in their oxidized form with color-forming components by coupling
therewith in places in the photographic element where no silver
image is produced (column 1, lines 31 through 39). It is also
well-known that the color dyes should be formed only where the
silver halide is reduced to metallic silver by the developers,
thereby oxidizing the developer to a form which couples with the
color-forming agent. Once oxidized, the developer reacts
(couples) immediately with the color former whether a
photographic image is present or not (column 1, lines 39 through
23
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