The examiner relies upon a combination of up to five different references to
reject the claimed subject matter and establish a prima facie case of obviousness.
One of the underlying premises of the examiner’s rejection is that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to employ the N,N-dialkylaniline compounds
of Adair in the composition of Ali. The reasoning of the examiner is that, “[s]ince Adair
teaches that N,N-dialkylanilines within the scope of the instant claims are equivalent to
those exemplified by Ali as photopolymerization accelerators, and Ali teaches that his
N,N-dialkylanilines act not only as accelerators but also impart higher storage
stability to photopolymerization compositions without attendant loss of imaging speed,
it is reasonable to presume that the p-substituted-N,N-dialkyl anilines within the scope
of the instant claims inherently possess said dual functions,” and therefore can be
combined. See Answer, page 7. We disagree.
In our view the examiner’s rejection is predicated upon an assumption that the
individual components in a photopolymerizable system perform standard functions and
are interchangeable with other photopolymerizable systems. However, our analysis
of the references of record reveals that the only component uniformly present and
performing the same function in each of the references of record is the
polymerizable unsaturated compound. The photopolymerization systems otherwise
contain diverse initiators, sensitizers and other components which interact with each
other in a unique but a systematic manner. In our view N,N-dialkyl anilines are one such
component which performs a different function in each of the references in which
they are present.
The primary reference to Ali discloses a photopolymerizable composition
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