Appeal No. 2006-2617
Application No. 10/729,446
and therefore reasonably appears to be a product having a haze value of 12
percent or less.
Because Sosa describes a process having all of the steps recited in
claim 18, we affirm the anticipation rejection claim 18. Claims 1-5 and 8
fall with claim 18.
3. OBVIOUSNESS
Claims 6, 7, 9-17, and 19-30 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Sosa in view of Bowen.3
The Examiner acknowledges that Sosa differs from claim 19 in that
Sosa “does not disclose . . . a process condition wherein the reaction can be
initiated thermally . . . .” (Answer 6.) To meet this limitation, the Examiner
cites Bowen as disclosing a process in which styrene monomer is dissolved
in a styrene-butadiene-styrene triblock copolymer, and “[t]he polymerization
of styrene monomer is initiated thermally.” (Id.)
The Examiner may establish a prima facie case of obviousness based
on multiple references “only by showing some objective teaching in the
prior art or that knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the
art would lead that individual to combine the relevant teachings of the
references.” In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed.
Cir. 1988). While the reason for practicing the claimed subject matter may
be explicit from the prior art, “the teaching, motivation or suggestion may be
implicit from the prior art as a whole, rather than expressly stated in the
references. The test for an implicit showing is what the combined teachings,
3Bowen, U.S. Patent 5,633,318, issued May 27, 1997
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