Appeal No. 96-3935
Application 08/209,673
Popular Science articles relied upon by the examiner each disclose an auto-destruct injection device
having a flow control valve in the form of a disc of water swellable hydrophilic polymer instead of a disc
of hydrophilic polymer with viscoelastic memory. In each of the articles, the water swellable polymer
disc, or flow control valve, has a small flow orifice therethrough which is closed off when the hydrogel
polymer of the disc absorbs water from the drug injection and swells, thus rendering the syringe
inoperative. The examiner is of the opinion that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to utilize Wozniak’s teaching of using polyethylene oxide hydrogel as the hydrogel polymer of the
disc disclosed in the Popular Science articles. We agree.
However, while the disc or plug member of each of the Popular Science articles has the same
outward appearance as the flow control valve of appellants’ invention as set forth in claims 8 through
10 on appeal and Wozniak teaches using a polymer having viscoelastic memory to form an expansion
plug of the type seen in Figures 2A and 2B of that patent, there is no disclosure or teaching in the
references applied by the examiner of providing a polymer plug or
viscoelastic memory flow control valve in a first configuration that is then altered to a second
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