Appeal No. 1997-1520
Application No. 08/365,464
noted above, Ito specifically discloses that Methylene Blue has antibacterial characteristics
(column 3, lines 55 and 56). Hence, we agree with the examiner that one of ordinary skill in
the art would have been motivated to use an effective amount of Methylene Blue to serve
as both an antibiotic and a colorant in the application of Stephenson. While appellant
contends that the disclosures of Stephenson and Ito are not combinable because they
teach different base materials, the examiner has correctly pointed out that both
Stephenson and Ito disclose polyester as a base material.
We will also sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 3 and 10 under § 103 over
Stephenson in view of Ito and Ohlson. Claim 3 recites that the binder is a blocked
waterborne polyurethane prepolymer, and Ohlson discloses the use of a waterborne
polyurethane polymer for treating woven or non-woven textile materials to enhance coloring
of the materials by dyes, including dispersed dyes. Since Methylene Blue is a dispersed
dye (see Ito at column 3, lines 48-56), we agree with the examiner that it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to replace the polyurethane copolymer of
Stephenson with the waterborne polyurethane of Ohlson with the reasonable expectation of
facilitating dying the substrate material with increased color flexibility in a one-step process
(see examiner's answer at page 5, paragraph 5.)
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