Appeal No. 95-4669
Application 08/044,674
unpatentable over Laurin in view of Hoffman, the examiner has taken the following
positions:
Laurin et al disclose an anti-infective medical article comprising a
hydrophilic polymer which includes an insoluble silver salt bulk. . . .
While Laurin et al do not specifically state that the polymers are
hydrophilic, such a property is inherent in most of the polymers disclosed.
For example, it is well known that polyurethane may be hydrophilic.
Laurin et al do not disclose a polymer with a water absorption of 5% or
more.
Gebelein (Hoffman) teaches several polymers which are
hydrophilic with a water absorption of 5% in the area of biomaterials
where water absorption is critical. (See pages 15-18).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at
the time the invention was made to include the polymers with low water
absorption (1-5%) disclosed in Gebelein (Hoffman) in the invention
disclosed in Laurin et al in order to select a polymer that has a water
absorption of 5% or a low water uptake.
We will not sustain this rejection. From our perspective, what is missing from the
examiner’s evidentiary basis is any teaching of the desirability, and thus the
obviousness, of using a resin in Laurin that has a relatively high water absorption, i.e.,
in the range of 5% or more by weight, as now expressly set forth in claims 1 and 2.
Notwithstanding the examiner’s theory that some sort of disclosure of significant water
absorption for Laurin’s resins may be attributed to the primary reference because (1)
Laurin merely does not “specifically state” that the polymers are hydrophilic, (2)
polyurethane, one of Laurin’s resins, may be hydrophilic, and/or (3) hydrophilicity is, in
the examiner’s opinion, an inherent property in most of the polymers disclosed in
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