Appeal No. 95-1146
Application No. 07/913,126
amine curing agent. EXAMPLE 14 of the European reference
discloses that no curing was effected in the absence of an
amine. Accordingly, the collective teachings of Cady and the
European patent would have suggested that when the ether
substituent of Cady is replaced with a hydroxyl substituent,
an amine curing agent must be employed. Since the appealed
claims define a copolymer with hydroxyl, not ether,
functionality having no amine functionality, we agree with
appellants that the collective teachings of Cady and the
European patent would not have rendered obvious the claimed
copolymer.
Although we agree with appellants that the applied prior
art does not establish a prima facie case of obviousness for
the claimed subject matter, we do not subscribe to several of
appellants' arguments. For one, inasmuch as appellants'
specification attaches no particular criticality to the use of
water or inorganic solvent as the solvent medium (see
specification, page 5, lines 14-17), we find that it would
have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to
utilize an aqueous medium in the polymeric coating
compositions of the applied references. Also, we find little
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