Appeal No. 96-3935
Application 08/209,673
the polymer while in the second configuration to reform the crystalline structure. As is clear from page
6 of appellants’ specification, the cooling recrystallizes the amorphous regions of the polymer, thereby
locking the viscoelastic memory means into the desired second configuration.
However, as is emphasized in the “whereby” clause of claim 40 on appeal, when the memory
means in said second configuration is exposed to a solvent of the polymer (e.g., water), such exposure
causes the polymer “to revert from the second configuration to the first configuration.” It is this
structural characteristic of reversion from a second configuration to a prior first configuration which is
not taught or suggested in Wozniak. That is, while Wozniak clearly discloses using a polymer having
viscoelastic memory to form an expansion plug apparently of the type seen in Figures 2A and 2B of the
patent, there is no disclosure or teaching therein of providing such a polymer plug in a first configuration
that is then altered to a second configuration by steps such as those recited in appellants’ claim 40,
whereby the plug is locked in the second configuration and upon exposure to a solvent of the polymer
will revert or change back to the prior first configuration. Since the polymer plugs disclosed in Wozniak
lack this critical characteristic of appellants’ invention as set forth in independent claim 40, it follows that
the examiner’s rejection of claim 40 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Wozniak will
not be sustained.
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