Appeal No. 1997-2977
Application No. 08/431,688
The appellants allege as follows:
It must be recognized that Dr. Babel and a group
of other scientists working at the company which is
the assignee of this application, namely McDonnell
Douglas Corporation, did not come up with the idea
of using a fluoropolymer coating for quite some
period of time and indeed, some period of time after
the Babel et al. reference. Dr. Babel and the
others who were working with Dr. Babel at McDonnell
Douglas Corporation clearly recognized the problem
as did the United States government, which basically
uses the coating on spacecraft. Nevertheless, it
clearly was not obvious to a group of people working
with the United States and certainly not to the
group working with Dr. Babel and certainly not
obvious to Dr. Babel himself. Consequently, it is
difficult to understand how that which apparently
seems obvious to the Examiner was not obvious to a
large number of top scientists working in this
field. The simple fact is that it was not obvious.
[Substitute appeal brief, pp. 13-14.]
We point out, however, that there is no factual evidence on
this record to support this allegation. In this regard, it is
well settled that mere lawyer’s arguments and conclusory
statements, which are unsupported by factual evidence, are
entitled to little probative value. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d
1465, 1470, 43 USPQ2d 1362, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re De
Blauwe, 736 F.2d 699, 705, 222 USPQ 191, 196 (Fed. Cir. 1984);
In re Wood, 582 F.2d 638, 642, 199 USPQ 137, 140 (CCPA 1978);
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