Appeal No. 1997-1875
Application No. 08/451,378
reasoning to support the proposition that the improvement
reflected by the two inventive compounds in the declarations
would not be exhibited by the class of compounds defined by
independent claim 1.
For one thing, this class of compounds varies widely in
structure. Even focusing only on the linking group R (which
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the appellants identify as the difference between their
claimed compounds and the prior art compounds), it is
undeniable that the substituents embraced by this group vary
widely in terms of chemical elements and structures (e.g.,
compare the first and the last two R substituents listed in
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appealed claim 1). It is reasonable to conclude that the here
claimed compounds containing such wide chemical variation
would likewise possess widely varying properties and thus
would not necessarily exhibit as a class the improvement shown
for the two inventive compounds tested in the Zinke
declarations.
Furthermore, these declarations reflect that the superior
antiwear properties of the inventive compounds in comparison
with the compound of the applied prior art amounts to an
improvement of approximately 12% (e.g., 0.092 divided by 0.082
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