Appeal No. 1996-4071 Page 7
Application No. 08/292,692
the sides of said forming tube" were provided. Having
recognized that none of the applied references teach or
suggest this claimed limitation, the examiner (answer, page
5), nonetheless, takes the position that:
[i]t is well known to coat molds with mold
release agent or Teflon in order to prevent
sticking of the material. These agents are
equivalents for the function of preventing
sticking. It would have been obvious ... to
apply mold release agent or Teflon to the
entire surface of the mold in order to
prevent sticking and facilitate removal of
the end product from the mold.
Here, even if we accepted the examiner’s suggested
officially noticed fact of the prior use of mold release
agents, the examiner has not met the burden of explaining why
a skilled artisan would have been motivated to use a release
agent coating on any of the particular molds of JP ‘817 or JP
‘824 during a modified process wherein blow molding takes
place without plug assist. In this regard, we note that
appellant (brief, page 7) challenges the examiner’s assertion
of the obviousness of the claimed limitation at issue noting
that "no indication that sticking of the intermediate to the
forming tube is a problem" is apparent from the applied prior
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