Appeal No. 1996-2963 Page 7
Application 07/952,427
solution. Along this vein, appellants assert that the
examiner’s rejection is premised on an “obvious-to-try”
standard.
We do not consider those arguments convincing. In our
view, appellants’ contentions are of little probative value
since the appealed subject matter, with which we are concerned
here, is not directed to a particular steam sterilization
process or, for that matter, as illustrated by representative
claim 16, non-PVC plastic material. Additionally, even if the
subject matter at issue herein were limited to containers
constructed of non-PVC plastic material, the use of such
materials for the blood bag of Mohr would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art in light of the teachings of
Meruelo (column 3, lines 22-30 and column 7, lines 42-47)
regarding the use of glass or other non-PVC material, as
available construction materials for forming containers for
holding and treating blood and other biological fluids with
antiviral compounds as explained by the examiner (answer,
pages 5-7). While Meruelo (column 7, lines 42-68) does
disclose PVC plastic as one of the available plastic materials
for use in forming blood bags that are sterile as argued by
-7-
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