Appeal No. 1997-0312
Application No. 08/371,311
upon for teaching the inclusion of a polyolefin in a blend of the type claimed, we find
that the examiner has not cited sufficient prior art evidence to support the legal conclusion
that it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate a polyolefin
in a blend comprising the claimed polyester and polyamide.2
One final point remains. In the paragraph bridging pages 8 and 9 of appellants'
specification, we are told that the term "polyolefin" includes materials that are commercially
available under the trade name of "ASPUN[®]." Furthermore, in the EXAMPLE at page
11 of appellants' specification, ASPUN® 6830A is described as an ethylene -1-octene
copolymer with 0.1% maleic anhydride and 0.5% calcium stearate. Since appellants'
position on appeal is that the claimed polyolefin is not an adduct of an olefin copolymer to
maleic anhydride, we presume ASPUN® 6830A is an admixture of ethylene-1-octene-
copolymer, maliec anhydride and calcium stearate. If this is not the case, it would seem
that this issue should be resolved upon return of this application to the examiner.
2Appellants state at page 2 of the brief that "[t]he instant formulation is an improvement over a
monofilament comprising a polyester (terephthalic acid and 1,4 dimethylocyclohexane) and polyamide." As
a result, we presume that appellants' invention resides in adding a polyolefin to a blend comprising the other
two components recited in appealed claim 1.
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