Appeal No. 95-3989
Application No. 07/956,107
without undue experimentation. In particular, we are in
substantial agreement with the position advanced by appellant
at page 15 of the Brief.
We now turn to the rejection of the appealed claims under
35 U.S.C. § 102/§ 103 over Sato. Although there is no dispute
that Sato discloses the claimed nonionic perfluoro surfactant
and ionic perfluoro surfactant in a polymeric composition, we
agree with appellant that Sato does not describe, within the
meaning of § 102, or render obvious under § 103, the presently
claimed radiation curable monomer. Sato expressly discloses
at page 2 of the translation that the invention relates to
plastic compositions wherein "plastics" is defined as "natural
and synthetic elastomers, plastomers, and heat-curing resins."
At page 6 of the translation, second paragraph, the reference
lists specific plastics. We find no factual basis for the
examiner's position that the generic term "plastics" includes
materials which are known as monomers. Compositions that are
molded by heat-curing are normally thermosetting polymers.
Also, all the working examples of Sato treat a polymerized,
cured sample with the surfactants. The examiner has not
explained why it would have been obvious for one of ordinary
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