Appeal No. 2002-1653
Application No. 09/543,336
within the province of this Board to ferret out evidence from
appellants' specification which supports a conclusion of
nonobviousness.
The thrust of appellants' argument is directed towards Hoy,
the secondary reference. As explained by the examiner, however,
appellants have failed to address the specific disclosure in Chen
of utilizing 1.5 mols of acetoacetate per mol of crosslinker.
While appellants state at page 4 of the Reply Brief that the
examiner "erroneously states that Appellants have not addressed
his arguments regarding the cited prior art" (penultimate
paragraph), appellants' Reply Brief persists in not confronting
Chen's disclosure of the preferred ratio that falls directly
within the claimed range. Appellants do not shoulder their
burden of refuting the examiner's rejection by offering the
conclusion that "[i]t is akin to comparing the proverbial apples
and oranges to compare Chen with the Appellants' [sic,
Appellants'] invention" (id.). It is incumbent upon appellants
to cite facts to support their "apples and oranges" analogy. The
principal and reply briefs, however, are fatally deficient in
presenting such facts.
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