Appeal No. 95-4985
Application No. 08/164,227
OBVIOUSNESS
It is well settled that equivalency alone does not
establish obviousness. See In re Scott, 323 F.2d 1016, 1019-
20, 139 USPQ 297, 299-300 (CCPA 1963); In re Flint, 330 F.2d
363, 367-68,
141 USPQ 299, 302 (CCPA 1964). It is the teachings of the
prior art taken as a whole which must provide a motivation or
suggestion to combine the references. See Uniroyal, Inc. v.
Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1051, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1438
(Fed. Cir. 1988) and Interconnect Planning Corp. v. Feil, 774
F.2d 1132, 1143, 227 USPQ 543, 550-51 (Fed. Cir. 1985).
The examiner contends that the polyurethane and
polyurethane urea prepolymer making process of claims 1
through 12 would have been obvious to those skilled in the art
in view of Zaby and Sweeney. However, Zaby is directed to
using a venturi-type mixing reactor to form polyisocyanates.
It does not provide any suggestion whatsoever to employ the
venturi type mixing reactor in a process for making the
claimed prepolymers, which involves the reaction of materially
different reactants than those required for forming
polyisocyanates. Nor does Sweeney provide any suggestion to
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