Appeal No. 95-2876
Application 07/906,403
shell of matrix material containing a second type of
pharmaceutical. Beck et al. (¶ bridging col’s. 9 +
10) suggest using different matrix materials. Beck
et al. (col. 10, lines 36-38) contemplate
microparticles ranging in size as low as 10 or 20 m
[sic, Fm], so that size of the incorporated
pharmaceutical would be even smaller. While the
Beck et al. reference may not disclose a specific
example of the above described embodiment, it is
clearly within the purview of Beck et al., and thus
would have been obvious therefrom to one skilled in
the art at the time applicants’ invention was made.
Disclosure in a reference is not limited to its
specific illustrative examples, but must be
considered as a whole to ascertain what would be
realistically suggested thereby to one of ordinary
skill in the art. See In re Uhlig, 153 USPQ 460.
Claim 25 permits incorporated substance(s) to be in
both polymers, including the core polymers.
Appellants argue that Beck does not suggest forming a
coating polymer layer of uniform thickness. In so arguing,
appellants fail to consider Beck in its entirety. Beck, for
example, evinces Figures 2 through 5 each showing spherical
particles having a second polymer layer having a uniform
thickness. Beck also describes a phase-separation process as
one of the desired processes for making spherical particles
which are shown in Figures 2 through 5. The phase-separation
process described is inclusive of appellants' phase-separation
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