Appeal No. 95-1211
Application 07/887,904
hindered amine stabilizers, which may be synergistic with the hindered amine amic acid hydrazide
stabilizers (page 28, lines 7-9, and page 29, lines 39-43 and 47-48), the hindered phenol with hydrazine
functionality which is the stabilizer set forth in appealed claim 17, and is “antioxidant C” of specification
Examples 1 and 4 (pages 16-20), is not per se disclosed in this reference. As we pointed out above,
the stabilizer of claim 17 is disclosed by Turbett to be useful in polyolefin systems used to insulate
electrical conductors as a copper deactivator and is admitted by appellants to be an antioxidant. This
stabilizer also falls within those antioxidants which MacLeay discloses can be used with hindered amine
amic acid hydrazide stabilizers. Thus, one of ordinary skill in this art would have been motivated to
address the art recognized problem of the extraction of stabilizers by hydrocarbon cable filler grease
from polyolefin mixtures by employing a mixture of a hindered amine amic acid hydrazides and another
known antioxidant as disclosed by MacLeay with polyolefins used to insulate electrical conductors with
the reasonable expectation of successfully providing thermal and oxidative stabilization to these
polyolefin polymeric systems, which are normally subject to thermal and oxidative degradation, and
resisting antioxidant extraction from such systems. O’Farrell, supra. Thus, the article of manufacture
set forth in appealed claim 17 was prima facie within the ordinary skill in this art at the time it was
made.
A discussion of Baron is not necessary to our decision.
We have carefully considered all of appellants’ arguments in their principal and reply briefs and
the evidence in their specification in light of their arguments presented in rebuttal to the prima facie case
in again assessing patentability of the claimed invention as a whole based on the record as a whole,
including all the evidence of obviousness and of nonobviousness. See generally In re Johnson, 747
F.2d 1456, 1460, 223 USPQ 1260, 1263 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Appellants have based their case for
nonobviousness on the evidence presented in specification Examples 1-4 (pages 16-20). We find that
the results from the comparison provided by specification Example 1, representing the prior art with a
mixture of antioxidants, and specification Examples 2 and 3, representing claims 1-11 and 16 with the
hindered amine amic acid hydrazide of MacLeay Example XXIV, are no more than the results which
one of ordinary skill in this art would have reasonably expected from the teachings in MacLeay that
amine amic acid hydrazides would successfully providing oxidative stabilization to polyolefin systems
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