Ex parte AIHARA et al. - Page 7




             Appeal No. 95-4830                                                                                   
             Application 07/899,361                                                                               


             648 (Fed. Cir. 1985).                                                                                
                    Regarding appellants’ claim 2, Suzuki teaches that X can                                      
             be either -COO- or -OCO- (col. 2, lines 44-48).                                                      
                    Appellants argue that Table 2 of their specification                                          
             shows that appellants’ claimed invention produces a surprising                                       
             improvement in a significant property, i.e., response time                                           
             (brief, page 13).  Appellants state that since they claim both                                       
             configurations of the internal ester, the important issue is                                         
             whether the orientation of the terminal ester recited in their                                       
             claim 1 unexpectedly improves response time (brief, pages 11                                         
             and 13).                                                                                             
                    Appellants argue that appellants’ Table 2 shows that in                                       
             one of six tests, appellants’ compound had a response time                                           
             which was only 80% as fast as that of Suzuki, whereas in the                                         
             other five tests, the response times of appellants’                                                  
             compositions were faster by factors of 1.6, 1.7, 3.4, 4.3 and                                        
             9.9 (brief, page 12).  For the following reasons, we do not                                          
             find this argument to be convincing.                                                                 
                    First, it is not enough for appellant to show that the                                        
             results for appellant’s invention and the comparative examples                                       
             differ.  The difference must be shown to be an unexpected                                            
                                                       -7-7                                                       





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