Appeal No. 94-3575
Application 07/929,044
alcohol based on 100 weight parts of polymer. In our judgment,
the prior art relied on by the examiner is insufficient to
support a conclusion of obviousness of claims containing that
limitation.
First, the examiner relies on Sablotsky’s disclosure of
“about 9% methanol” in column 6, lines 52 and 53. That
disclosure, however, relates to the amount of methanol in the
cross-linking agent, which is present in an amount of 0.2 to
about 1% by weight based on the total weight of Sablotsky’s first
component layer. See Sablotsky, column 6, lines 27 through 29.
The examiner’s reliance on this portion of Sablotsky is
misplaced, because Sablotsky does not disclose or suggest 5 to
100 weight parts of methanol based on 100 weight parts of polymer
as recited in independent claim 1. As correctly argued by
appellants in their Brief before the Board, page 5, footnote 1,
the amount of methanol disclosed by Sablotsky is well below the
amount of alcohol required by the appealed claims. Furthermore,
methanol is not a C -C alcohol.
2 3
Second, the examiner relies on Sablotsky’s disclosure of a
sequence of steps for producing a bilayer transdermal dosage
system. Specifically, the examiner refers to column 10, lines 4
4
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