Appeal No. 1997-1299
Application 08/393,746
encapsulated by at least one ethylene polymer having units
derived from unsaturated epoxy monomers or from unsaturated
acid anhydride monomers.
EP ‘280 discloses a rubber-like polymer dispersed in an
amorphous polymer such that at least part of the rubber-like
polymer is in the form of a stringy structure or a two-
dimensional or three-dimensional network structure (page 5,
lines 36-37; page 6, lines 1-2 and 9-10). The rubber-like
polymer can be any rubber-like polymer having a storage shear
modulus at room temperature of 5 x 10 dyne/cm or less (page8 2
5, lines 17-19). The exemplified rubber-like polymers include
olefin rubber-like copolymers such as ethylene-propylene
rubber, ethylene-butene rubber and ethylene-propylene-butene
rubber (page 5, lines 20-24).
The Epstein references are relied upon by the examiner
for a suggestion to use in the EP ‘280 process an ethylene
polymer having units derived from unsaturated epoxy monomers
or from unsaturated acid anhydride monomers (answer, page 3).
The examiner argues that figures 3 and 4 of EP ‘280 show
a rubber-like polymer in the form of a network structure in an
4
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