Appeal No. 95-1622
Application 07/890,593
)methylcyclopentandienyltricarbonylmanganese and either styrene (Wright Example 13) or methyl
methacrylate (Wright Example 18) having an energy sensitive organometallic group which is free of
nucleophilic groups and a polynucleophilic compound which is pyrazine (Wright Example 13) or 1,2-
bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane (Wright Example 18) is coated onto at least a portion of one side of a 75
µm film, that we presume to be a metallized or primed film which would have basic reactive sites,8 and
irradiated to adhere the coating to the substrate.
Accordingly, it appears from this evidence that Wright Examples 13 and 18 satisfy all of the
limitations of appealed claim 2 even though Wright is silent with respect to whether the organometallic
copolymer is chemically bonded through the energy sensitive organometallic group to the basic reactive
site on the polyester film. However, we find that while Wright does not use the term “chemically
bonded” employed by appellants in appealed claim 2, the reference does use the terms “adherent” (e.g.,
col. 10, line 60) and “adhesion” (e.g., col. 11, line 21) to describe coatings that “become crosslinked
and bound to the substrate” when exposed to radiation energy (col. 11, lines 50-51) in the same manner
as appellants in their specification (e.g., page 4, lines 13 and 19-20). For example, in Wright Example
18, the coated film was disclosed to have “extremely good adhesion” (col. 17, line 14). Indeed,
because both appealed claim 2 and Wright use the identical or substantially identical organometallic
copolymers containing energy sensitive organometallic groups and polynucleophiles to coat at least a
portion of one side of an identical or substantial identical substrate having basic reactive sites and use the
identical or substantially identical process of exposing the coating to radiation energy to obtain an
adherent coating on the substrate, the claimed articles and those prepared in Wright are necessarily or
inherently identical or substantially identical. Furthermore, we observe here that
upon exposure of the coating to radiation energy, the polynucleophilic compound can react with the
organometallic groups on the organometallic copolymer such that a reactive nucleophilic site may or may
not remain on a crosslinked organometallic copolymer which also contains at least one energy sensitive
8 We note that the substrate in Wright Example 6 is “[v]apor coated aluminum on 75 µm polyester film”
which appears to be referred to in, e.g., Wright Examples 7, 10 and 22 as a “primed polyester (75 µm)”
and otherwise as, for example, “polyester” or “75 µm polyester” as in, e.g., Wright Examples 9, 11-14,
17 and 18.
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