Appeal No. 95-3869
Application 08/037,301
We remanded the case to the examiner to determine whether or not
the objective evidence contained in the comparative examples is
sufficient to rebut the prima facie case of obviousness. On
October 14, 1997, the examiner issued a supplemental examiner's
answer (Paper No. 17) addressing the objective evidence contained
in the comparative examples. After carefully considering the
examiner's position with respect to the evidence relied on by
appellants, we have decided to reverse the rejection because we
find the evidence of unexpected advantages to be sufficient to
rebut the prima facie case of obviousness.
As pointed out by appellants in their brief, the process of
the appealed claims, which call for powder coating and heat
treating prior to fluorinating the polymer, results in unexpected
improvement in reducing agglomeration and increasing porosity
compared to the prior art process of solution or suspension
coating. In the comparative examples appellants present six
Examples (1-6) of powder coating according to the appealed claims
and two comparative examples using the prior art solution or
suspension coating process. The results set forth in Tables 1
and 2 show a substantial reduction in agglomeration for Examples
2
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