Appeal No. 1998-0113
Application No. 08/437,517
suggestion, reason or motivation to combine the prior art
references as proposed in the rejection.
The examiner has not advanced any convincing evidence or
reasoning why one of ordinary skill in the art would have used
the length-to-width aspect ratio of Minami for the fibers of
Turbak in view of the prior art as a whole. Turbak discloses
cellulosic regenerated fibers made by a nitrosation process in
combination with specific organic solvents and regenerants
(see col. 1, l. 53-col. 2, l. 60) while Minami is directed to
viscose rayon filaments (i.e., cellulosic regenerated fibers
made from the viscose process). There is no evidence 3
presented by the examiner as to why one of ordinary skill in
the art would have applied the aspect ratio of Minami for
viscose rayon fibers to the different fibers of Turbak,
especially when Minami teaches that his invention is not
applicable even to similar materials (page 3, penultimate
paragraph; page 4, second paragraph). Turbak specifically
3As correctly argued by appellants (Brief, page 6),
viscose rayon is a subset of rayon, being one of the four main
types of rayon. See Hackh’s Chemical Dictionary, pp. 724-25,
3rd ed., The Blakiston Co., Inc., N.Y., 1953 (copy attached to
this decision).
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