Appeal No. 1996-3955
Application 08/170,601
(brief, page 9), and that these references disclose use of
aqueous alkaline diffusion transfer dyes which Masukawa
indicates would not work in appellants’ elements and process
(reply brief, page 6). Thus, appellants argue, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led away by Cole,
Hara, Peters and Schenk from using appellants’ dyes (reply
brief, pages 6-7). Appellants further argue that the dye
immobilization during the aqueous dye transfer of Cole, Hara,
Peters and Schenk occurs essentially chemically irreversibly
due to very strong charge and dipole interactions between the
solubilizing groups of the diffusing dyes and the cationically
charged groups of the receiving layer image fixing polymer,
whereas appellants’ dye diffusion transfer does not have this
irreversibility and is more like an equilibrium, depending
more on the relative solubility of diffusible dye in the
receiving polymer relative to the thermal solvent loaded
hydrophilic binder of the image dye forming layers (reply
brief, page 8). Consequently, appellants argue, appellants’
system and those of these references are chemically and
mathematically diffusionally distinguishable so that balancing
in the systems of these references would not have led
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