Appeal No. 1996-1887
Application 08/295,315
DeBoer ‘572 Example 3 by using the PTFE beads of Vanier ‘860 in place of the polystyrene spacer
beads. As appellants point out (principal brief, pages 5-6; reply brief, pages 1-2), Vanier ‘860
discloses the use of lubricating particles, inter alia, PTFE beads, in the slipping layer and in the dye
layer, which layers are on opposite sides of a support, in preparing a dye-donor element which does not
have an overcoat and is used with a dye-receiving layer in thermal dye transfer processes which employ
a thermal printing head (e.g., cols. 1-2 and 5-8). We find that this reference teaches the use of the
lubricating particles to overcome problems encountered with the storage of the dye-donor elements and
the transfer of heat to the dye-donor element by the thermal printing head (id., e.g., cols. 1-2). The
examiner has provided no evidence or scientific explanation why one of ordinary skill in this art would
have recognized that PTFE beads, based on their lubricating properties as taught in Vanier ‘860, can be
used in place of polystyrene beads, and indeed, in a different polymer binder, in the overcoat of the
dye-donor used in DeBoer ‘572 with the reasonable expectation of obtaining a dye-ablative recording
element that does not contain a separate receiving element and is used in a process of forming an
ablation image with a laser. Indeed, the bare statement with respect to knowledge in the art on page 17
of appellants’ specification does not provide such a suggestion and expectation of success because the
materials with respect to which the statement is made are not disclosed in the applied prior art. Because
the examiner has not established a prima facie case of obviousness, we have not considered
appellants’ contention that the evidence in the table on page 17 of the reference establishes unexpected
results.
Thus, it is manifest that the only direction to appellants’ claimed invention as a whole on the
record before us is supplied by appellants’ own specification. Dow Chem., 837 F.2d at 473, 5
USPQ2d at 1531-32.
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