Appeal No. 94-0539
Application 07/890,456
Appealed claims 1-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Chapman in view of Molaire and
Kawakami.
Upon thorough review of the opposing arguments presented
on appeal, we concur with appellant that the examiner has not
established a prima facie case of obviousness for the claimed
invention. Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner's
rejection.
Chapman, the primary reference, discloses the
conventional use of a polymeric binder for a dye donor element
of a laser-induced thermal dye transfer process. While
Molaire discloses appellant's nonpolymeric, organic material
as a binder in a laser-recording element, we agree with
appellant that there is no teaching or suggestion in the
applied references that the binder of Molaire can be
effectively employed as a binder for the donor element of a
thermal dye transfer process.
The examiner's reliance on Kawakami for providing the
motivation for utilizing the binder of Molaire in the donor
element of Chapman is misplaced. Like Chapman, Kawakami uses
a polymeric binder in the donor element of a thermal transfer
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