Appeal No. 95-1622
Application 07/890,593
polyester” which would have basic reactive sites (see supra note 8), and exposed to radiation energy to
adhere the coating to the substrate, such that the claimed article and that prepared in Wright Example
22 are necessarily or inherently, identical or substantially identical. Wright (e.g., col. 5, line 61, to col.
6, line 2) would also have reasonably suggested to one of ordinary skill in this art that this example can
be modified to provide a coating having a substantially higher ratio of energy sensitive organometallic
groups to nucleophilic groups, and thus a greater concentration of energy sensitive organometallic
groups that would not be involved in the crosslinking reaction, with the reasonable expectation of
obtaining an adherent coating upon exposure to energy.
Wright further discloses Embodiment I (e.g., col. 2, lines 27-31; col. 3, lines 33-36, col. 3,
line 45, to col. 4, line 25, col. 5, lines 43-50, col. 11, lines 5-15, and Wright Examples 1-12)
wherein a coating of copolymers formed from a monomeric organometallic compound containing an
energy sensitive organometallic group, a monomeric compound containing reactive nucleophilic groups
and, optionally, a monomeric compound that does not contain either of the reactive groups, is applied to
at least a portion of one surface of a substrates having basic reactive sites and the copolymer coated
substrate is exposed to radiation energy to form an adherent coating on the substrate. While the overall
process is similar to Embodiments II and III, it does differ in that the copolymers coated on the
substrate contain energy sensitive organometallic groups and reactive nucleophilic groups, and upon
exposure to energy, the organometallic groups react with the reactive nucleophilic groups that are
present on the same or different copolymer (col. 3, line 45, to col. 4, line 25). Thus, in comparing
appealed claim 2 and Wright Embodiment I, the issue that arises is whether these copolymers that are
coated on the substrate are essentially free of reactive nucleophilic groups as we have construed this
limitation above. With respect to Wright Examples 1-12, we cannot determine whether the claimed
articles and those prepared in these examples are identical or substantially identical from the information
provided by Wright. We do observe here, as we did above, that upon exposure of the copolymers
coating to radiation energy, the reactive nucleophilic groups will react with the organometallic groups
such that a reactive nucleophilic site can remains on the crosslinked copolymer which also contains at
least one energy sensitive organometallic group, in similar manner to Wright Embodiments II and III,
and thus we are again of the opinion that such a crosslinked copolymer would satisfy the limitation in
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