Appeal No. 1996-0328
Application 08/060,891
[T]he Examiner's reasons ... puts the cart before the horse in that these
references are not in the field of endeavor and absent a specific motivating factor
would not be reviewed. [The examiner’s reasoning] relies-upon the open ended
language in Lustig et al of “ethylene and at least one high alpha olefin" and the
reference in Warren is to “... a major amount of ethylene with a minor amount of
one or more comonomers selected from C to about C or higher alpha-olefins3 10
...” Both of these patents utilize and disclose VLDPE bipolymers and are open to
terpolymers or polymers made with 4, 5, 6, 7, or more comonomers. This does
not mean that they provide any motivation for going beyond use of the exemplified
commercially available bipolymers. Furthermore, there is no teaching of any
means for selection from an infinite number of possible copolymer compositions
to arrive at any polymer which would be equal in performance much less have any
advantages over the disclosed bipolymers. Hence, there is no practical motivation
in these patents to review the catalyst/polymer manufacturing patent and modify
the Lustig et al and Warren teachings to arrive at the instant invention. What the
Examiner is suggesting is an invitation to experiment and invent not the suggestion
of a particular invention. Emphasis original, [Bracketed material added.]49
The Steinert et al reference is concerned with the production of linear low
density ethylene polymers. It is silent regarding formation of multilayer films, or
biaxially stretched films, or heat shrinkable films. Also, Steinert et al suggests that
the preferred terpolymers have a density of 0.915 to 0.925 g/cm which is outside3
the range claimed by the present invention. The Steinert et al reference on page 3,
lines 48-59, emphasizes that their process produces terpolymers having better
haze properties than either an ethylene/butene-1 or an ethylene/hexene-1 LLDPE
resin of comparable density and suggests use for making food wrap. Food wraps
are typically monolayer PVC, saran or polyethylene cast or blown films and the
term "food wrap" at the time of publication of the Steinert et al reference was not
typically used to refer to 90 C heat shrinkable films. Examples 5 and 10 of Steinerto
purportedly show production of terpolymer products having a density less than
0.915 g/cm . However, no film was reported for the terpolymer resin of Example3
10. Furthermore, there is no indication of how the 0.9 mil film of Example 5 was
made, but applicants assume that it was a pressed film or cast film in view of the
paucity of reported data. The reported haze of 26% is well above the preferred
maximum haze value of 12% denoted in Steinert et al on page 3, lines 57-59 for
the higher density terpolymers and much higher than the haze values achievable
49Brief, page 17, lines 3-26.
12
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007