Appeal No. 1996-1284 Application No. 08/084,685 appellant's modifier, tetramethylethylenediamine, would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of the prior art's use of dimethylethylamine as a polymerization modifier. Appellant maintains that "the claimed process which employs a tertiary diamine is not suggested by the naming of tertiary amines or even specific tertiary amines which are not diamines" (page 3 of Reply Brief, emphasis added). However, it is well settled that, on the issue of structural obviousness, the prima facie case of obviousness arises from the reasonable expectation that compounds that are very similar in structure will have similar properties. In re Hoch, 428 F.2d 1341, 1343-44, 166 USPQ 406, 409 (CCPA 1970). In the present case, it is our view that the claimed diamine is sufficiently similar in structure to the tertiary amines disclosed by GB '490 that one of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably expected that the claimed diamines would be a suitable modifier in the polymerization process of Van Amerongen. Our view is consistent with the examiner's rationale set forth on page 7 of the Answer and in the examiner's response to appellant's Reply Brief (Paper No. 15). -4-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007