Appeal No. 1998-3012
Application 08/751,764
The appealed claims, as represented by claim 1, are drawn to an imaging element comprising (i)
an image forming layer on the hydrophilic surface of a lithographic base which comprises hydrophobic
thermoplastic polymer particles and a cross-linking agent capable of cross-linking the specified
hydrophilic binder upon heating are dispersed in the binder, and (ii) a compound capable of converting
light to heat that is present either in the image forming layer or a layer adjacent thereto. Claim 7,
dependent on claim 1, further requires that the specified hydrophilic binder comprises reactive groups
and the cross-linking agent is capable of reacting with the reactive groups under the influence of heat.
Claim 10 is drawn to a method for making a lithographic printing plate from the imaging element of claim
1. According to appellants, the “heat-sensitive imaging element . . . can be used to obtain printing plates
having a high printing endurance” (specification, page 3).
The references relied on by the examiner are:
Vrancken et al. (Vrancken) 3,476,937 Nov. 4, 1969
Gardner et al. (Gardner) 0 599 510 Jun. 1, 1994
(published European Patent Application)
The examiner has rejected appealed claims 1 through 4 and 6 through 14 under 35 U.S.C. §
103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Gardner and Vrancken.1
Appellants state in their brief (page 4) that the appealed “claims will be argued as two groups”
wherein the first group is claims 1 through 4, 6 and 9 through 14 and the second group is claims 7 and
8, and separately argue the patentability of the second group of claims (id., pages 7-8). While the
examiner incorrectly observes that “[a]pellants’ brief states that the claims will be argued as a single
group” (answer, page 2), he does address appellants’ arguments with respect to the second group of
claims (id., pages 5-6). Appellants point out their statement and arguments with respect to claims 7 and
8 in their reply brief (pages 1-2). Based on this record, we find that appellants have separately argued
claims 7 and 8 and thus, we decide this appeal based on appealed claims 1 and 7 as representative of
the two groups of claims. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7) (1997).
We affirm.
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