Appeal No. 1998-1015
Application No. 08/208,912
claimed subject matter would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art within the meaning of § 103. Also, we concur with the examiner that appellants'
declaration evidence does not outweigh the evidence of obviousness represented by
the cited prior art. Accordingly, we will sustain the examiner's rejections.
We agree with the examiner and the merits panel of the prior Board decision that
it would have been prima facie obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to substitute
the quasi-reversible thermochromic coloring material of Kito '301 for the thermochromic
material of Shibahashi in making color memory toys. Appellants do not dispute that
Kito '301 specifically discloses the presently claimed quasi-reversible thermochromic
coloring materials. Indeed, appellants' specification states that "[t]he reversible
thermochromic recording composition proposed by the present inventor in U.S. patent
4,720,301 is preferably used as the above-mentioned quasi-reversible thermochromic
coloring." (page 3 of specification, paragraph 5). We are not persuaded by appellants'
argument that "Kito et al '301 discloses or suggests only a small number of
compositions which exhibit a two-color holding temperature range of 10-35/C." (page
12 of brief). Kito '301 expressly teaches that appellants' quasi-reversible
thermochromic coloring materials can be employed with a variety of articles (column 11,
lines 5-17), and it is well settled that it is a matter of obviousness for one of ordinary skill
in the art to select a particular component from among many disclosed by the prior art
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007