Appeal No. 95-1211
Application 07/887,904
claims 1 through 11 and 16 but we reverse with respect to appealed claim 17.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the examiner and appellants, we refer
to the examiner’s answer and to appellants’ principal and reply briefs for a complete exposition thereof.
Opinion
We have carefully reviewed the record on this appeal and based thereon conclude that the
claimed articles of manufacture as a whole would have been prima facie obvious over the combination
of Turbett, Baron, MacLeay and the background information provided by appellants in their
specification (page 1, line 6, to page 2, line 25) taken as a whole to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time the claimed invention was made. As shown by Turbett (cols. 1-2) and acknowledged by
appellants in their specification and in their principal brief (page 2), it is well recognized in the art that
hydrocarbon cable filler grease causes the degradation of the polyolefin resin and stabilizer mixtures
used as insulation for electrical conductors, and particularly by the extraction of stabilizers therefrom.
Turbett addressed this problem by utilizing a stabilizer composition of a copper deactivator which can
be a hindered phenol having hydrazide functionality (cols. 4-5 and 7-8), and an antioxidant which
contains at least four hindered phenol groups (cols. 6 and 7-8) in combination with certain ethylene
copolymers (col. 4). Appellants admit that the copper deactivator at col. 5, lines 16-17, of Turbett is
also an antioxidant (see supra, note 3).
We are of the view that one of ordinary skill in this art would have been motivated to address
this problem on a broader scale. MacLeay discloses hindered amine amic acid hydrazides which
provide thermal and oxidative stabilization and are not readily lost from polymeric systems via
volatilization, migration or extraction (e.g., abstract, page 6, lines 38-44, and pages 28-29). These
compounds can be , inter alia, the reaction products of a functionalized hindered amine amic acid
hydrazides and functionalized hindered phenols. An example of such a stabilizer is found in MacLeay
Example XXIV. MacLeay teaches that the stabilizers thereof can stabilize polymeric compositions
“which are normally subject to thermal [and] oxidative . . . degradation” and “are particularly useful in
the stabilization of polyolefins” (page 28, lines 6-7, and page 29, line 36). The broad range of
“polyolefins” disclosed (pages 28-29) is at least commensurate with the scope of this term as set forth in
appellants’ specification (pages 3-6). In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,
- 3 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007