Appeal No. 1996-3936
Application No. 08/261,514
of normal humidity, whereas the "dry-through time" referred to
in appellants' specification pertains to climatic conditions
of 23EC, no air flow and 90% relative humidity. For the
examiner to conclude that Bier's paint has the dry-through
time of appellants' paint requires the sort of speculation
that cannot form the basis for a rejection under either § 102
or § 103.
Under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we enter the
following new ground of rejection. Appealed claims 2, 4 and
6-10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over the admitted state of the prior art found at
page 1 of appellants' specification in view of prior art cited
by appellants in information disclosure statements, namely,
Japanese Patent Abstract No. 87-167594, JP-A-62-100 563 (JP
'563), Japanese Kokai Patent No. SHO 63-170478 (Japanese Kokai
'478), and Japanese Kokai Patent No. SHO 63-179978 (Japanese
Kokai '978). Appellants' specification readily acknowledges
that fast drying aqueous traffic paints were known in the art
at the time of filing the present application, albeit, we are
told, without the presence of fibers. However, the four
secondary references made of record by appellants provide
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