Appeal No. 96-0359
Serial No. 08/083,866
in view of Lee. Accordingly, we will sustain the rejection of claims 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 13 and 14 as
unpatentable over Lee for essentially those reasons expressed in the Answer.
Lee discloses a process for in situ blending of polymers comprising continuously coating under
polymerization conditions, a mixture of ethylene and one or more alpha-olefins having at least 3 carbon
atoms in at least two fluidized bed reactors connected in series, using the same catalyst as recited in
claim 13, such that an ethylene copolymer having a high melt index [i.e., LMW component] is formed in
one reactor and an ethylene copolymer having a low melt index [i.e., HMW component] is formed in
another reactor (see columns 2-4). The following table summarizes some of the claimed reaction
conditions versus corresponding conditions disclosed in Lee's Example 3 (Table bridging columns 7-
10).
reactor condition claimed HMW Lee's HMW claimed LMW Lee's LMW
production production ex. 3 production production ex. 3
sequence position first second second first
hydrogen/ethylene no higher than 0.0443 at least about 0.9 & 1.93
molar ratio about 0.3 at least about 8.0
times that in the
HMW reactor
ethylene partial no higher than 147 psia at least about 1.2 73 psia
pressure about 100 psia times that in the
HMW reactor
Example 3 (Table bridging columns 9-10) also discloses an ethylene polymer blend having a density of
0.922 g/cc, a flow index of 11.6 g/10 min., and a melt flow ratio of 51.9
9 According to Lee, melt flow ratio is defined as (flow index)/(melt index) wherein the flow index is
determined using ten times the weight used in determining the melt index (column 5, lines 13-20).
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