Appeal No. 96-1100
Application 07/836,032
specifically reject the examiner's argument that it would have
been obvious to discard the radiopaque element in the printing
materials, for the only suggestion for this is found via
impermissible hindsight.
Insofar as the second rejection of claim 1 is concerned, we
find ourselves in agreement with the appellants' position that
while Scholz teaches using a plasticizer in printing material for
an orthopaedic bandage, it does not teach using a plastisol,
which is not the same thing.
Among the limitations in independent claim 6 is that the
printing material be comprised of a water-based acrylic and a
pigment. Here, the examiner again points to Papp, which
discloses an acrylic latex emulsion as an ingredient in another
example of a radiopaque printing material. As was the case
above, we share the appellants' view that there is no suggestion,
other than hindsight, which would have motivated an artisan to
separate the acrylic latex and the pigment from the remaining
ingredients and utilize them as printing material on the Freeman
orthopaedic bandage.
The examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima
facie case of obviousness (see In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531,
1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993)), which is
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007