Appeal No. 95-4453
Application 07/885,419
Claims 15 through 21 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the
combined teachings of Willing, Shimizu, Oniwa and Ikeda.3
We reverse.
The examiner’s Section 103 rejection is predicated on the ground that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to employ the spray drying technique described in either
Oniwa or Ikeda in Willing’s evaporation step. See Answer, page 6. The examiner, however, has not
supplied any evidence or sound scientific reasoning to establish why one of ordinary skill in the art
would have been led to employ Oniwa’s or Ikeda’s spray drying technique for producing fine dry
powder in Willing’s evaporation step involving drying coated or impregnated substrates, such as latex
particle and colloidal silica coated papers. See Answer in its entirety. Significantly, there is no
evidence in the record that a spray drying technique for producing fine dry powder is
3In his statement of rejection, the examiner refers to, inter alia, Oniwa which is incorporated
by reference in Ikeda. To avoid any confusion and piece meal appeal, we will presume that the
examiner is relying on both Oniwa and Ikeda, in addition to Willing and Shimizu.
3
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