Appeal No. 1997-1299
Application 08/393,746
amorphous polymer such that the rubber-like polymer partially
encapsulates the amorphous polymer (answer, page 4). The
partial encapsulation referred to by the examiner appears to
be the regions in figures 3 and 4 where the rubber-like
polymer, which is the dark portion in each figure, surrounds
the amorphous polymer, which is the light portion. Even if
this argument is correct, for the following reason it is not
persuasive.
As pointed out by appellants (brief, page 12), in both
figures 3 and 4 of EP ‘280, the rubber-type polymer is a
styrene-butadiene rubber and the amorphous polymer is a
polyphenylene ether (page 2, lines 15-16 and 25; page 10,
lines 9-15). The examiner has not provided evidence or
technical reasoning which shows that if, instead of being a
styrene-butadiene rubber, the rubber-like polymer were an
ethylene polymer, particularly one having units derived from
unsaturated epoxy monomers or from unsaturated acid anhydride
monomers, and if this polymer formed a network structure in a
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