Appeal No. 1997-3118
Application No. 08/372,083
The examiner argues that “Strazdins teaches that the
addition of alum is beneficial for improving the strength
imparted to paper by the polysalt or polyelectrolyte complex”
(answer, page 4). What Strazdins, teaches, however, as
indicated by the excerpt cited above, is that the polysalt
secures the full benefit of the alum and incorporates it into
the paper. Strazdins’ examples 3 and 8, relied upon by the
examiner as teaching that alum improves the paper strength
(answer, page 5), show that paper made from an unbleached pulp
containing 1% alum has a particular strength. Neither these
examples nor the above-cited excerpt indicate that increasing
the amount of alum would increase the paper strength.
Moreover, Strazdins uses cationic and anionic polymers (col.
2, lines 3-18; col. 3, lines 3-20) which have specific
properties and are different from those used by Smith (page 3,
lines 7-41). The examiner argues that Smith is an improvement
over Strazdins (answer, page 5), but does not explain why one
of ordinary skill in the art would have considered the
teaching of Strazdins regarding the combined use of his
cationic and anionic polymers and alum to be applicable to the
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