Appeal No. 1995-0770
Application No. 07/929,457
New Ground of Rejection Under 37 CFR § 1.196(b)
Under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we make the following new ground of
rejection.
Claims 1 through 21 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. As evidence of
obviousness, we rely upon Kamath '703 and Tam '307.
Claim 1
a. Prima facie case
Kamath '703 describes the following process for preparing copolymers.
(1) Monomers containing unsaturated carbon-to-carbon bonds and two
polymerization initiators, one a low temperature initiator, the other a high
temperature initiator, and a solvent can be added to a reaction vessel. See
column 4, lines 20-32 (styrene and other unsaturated monomers); column 2,
line 61 - column 3, line 16 (low temperature initiator may be t-
butylperoxypivalate and high temperature initiator may be di-t-
butyldiperoxyazelate); column 5, lines 1-4 (polymerization can be conducted
in solution through use of solvent).
(2) The reaction vessel can be purged with an inert gas and sealed. See
column 5, lines 27-30 (the reaction vessel is purged with nitrogen and
sealed).
(3) The polymerization can occur using a 3-step heating schedule. See, e.g.,
Example 4 (first stage conducted at 90E C for three hours, the second stage
at 115E C for two hours, and the third stage at 130E C for one hour.). The
temperature during each temperature stage can be held constant. See, e.g.,
column 5, lines 31-33 and column 6, lines 59-60.
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