Appeal No. 1998-1939
Application No. 08/403,288
disclosure of a Shore hardness of 20A to 40D at col. 3, line
11 of Gueret ‘011.
Claim 5 recites:
The brush of claim 1, wherein said material is a
vulcanized material selected from the group
consisting of a silicone rubber, rubbers with a
nitrile function, EPDMs (terpolymers of
ethylene, propylene and a diene), natural
rubbers, polynorbordenes, and butyl rubbers.
Claims 26 is narrower than claim 5 in that the bristle
material is recited as "a vulcanized rubber material." We
take official notice of the fact that natural and synthetic3
rubbers generally must be vulcanized in order to have useful
properties, and conclude that one of ordinary skill would4
interpret the Cole and Gueret ‘011 disclosures of rubber and
synthetic rubber (elastomer) bristles as referring to
vulcanized rubber, since bristles made of unvulcanized rubber
3See In re Ahlert, 424 F.2d 1088, 1091, 165 USPQ 418,
420-21 (CCPA 1970).
4See 15 McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology
589 (1992) (copy enclosed). This reference also shows that,
contrary to appellant’s assertion at page 5 of the brief (last
paragraph), vulcanization is not limited to cross-linking by
sulfur bonds; see the first paragraph under "Curatives and
vulcanization."
9
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