Appeal No. 95-0678
Application 07/938,960
explained why appellant’s claimed process and the prior art
produce the same coated seed. Appellant’s specification (page
17) states that the coating on appellant’s seeds, prior to
addition of a binder to its surface, has a dusty surface. The
examiner has not explained why the prior art process wherein
seeds are coated with a solution produces a coating which has a
dusty surface or a coating which is the same as one having a
binder applied over a dusty surface.
The examiner further argues, in reliance on In re Kuhle,
526 F.2d 553, 188 USPQ 7 (CCPA 1975), that since appellant’s
recited powder coating method solves no apparent problem and
provides no unexpected results, it is a matter of obvious design
choice (answer, page 10).
The court in Kuhle considered certain aspects of a portable
electrical instrument for measuring moisture in soil to be an
obvious design choice. The examiner in the present case,
however, has not provided a convincing explanation as to why
using appellant’s powder coating method would have been an
obvious design choice. We note that the examiner’s statement
that appellant’s process “solves no apparent problem” is contrary
to appellant’s specification which indicates that appellant’s
process solves the problem of poor flowability of fuzzy
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