Appeal No. 95-3875
Application 08/049,613
This argument is not well taken because in the reference relied upon by the examiner
for a teaching of contacting an article with an aqueous solution, i.e., Stephenson, the
aqueous antimicrobial solution contacts a polymer layer on the surface of the article
and is incorporated into that layer (col. 6, lines 28-29 and 48-50). We do not find in the
references relied upon by the examiner a fair suggestion to dip an article which does
not have such a polymer layer into an aqueous antimicrobial solution.
The examiner argues that Stockum desires to eliminate permeation by using a
polymeric coating so that the antimicrobials are not incorporated throughout the entire
glove (answer, pages 6-7). The examiner, however, does not point to any recognition
by either Stockum or Stephenson that an aqueous antimicrobial solution would
permeate through an uncured natural rubber latex article. The disclosure by Stockum
regarding incorporating antimicrobials throughout the entire glove does not mention
how the antimicrobials are incorporated. The examiner has provided no evidence that
one of ordinary skill in the art would have considered an effective method for such
incorporation to be permeation after the glove is formed but before it is cured. The
antimicrobials could merely be mixed with the rubber latex before the glove is formed.
For the above reasons, we conclude that the examiner has not carried his
burden of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness of appellant’s claimed
invention.
DECISION
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