Appeal No. 96-3412
Application No. 08/293,577
ourselves in agreement with appellants that the applied prior
art fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness for
the claimed subject matter. Accordingly, we will not sustain
the examiner's rejection for essentially those reasons
expressed by appellants in their Brief, and we add the
following primarily for emphasis.
Independent claim 15 defines a process which requires
treating a trivalent phosphorous compound with the stabilizing
metal compound, whereas independent claims 25 and 26 define a
process of admixing a molten trivalent phosphorous compound
with the stabilizing metal compound, followed by cooling the
melt and ultimately isolating the solid product. Neither of
the references cited by the examiner teaches nor suggests
either the treatment of claim 15 or the process of claims 25
and 26 to form a solid product. Each of the references
discloses the addition of the phosphorous compounds to
thermoplastic materials for the purpose of stabilizing them,
wherein the thermoplastic compositions of
the references also include one of the presently claimed metal
compounds. Meyer teaches calcium carbonate as a filler whereas
Abolins employs metal oxides as co-stabilizers. However, we
-3-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007