Appeal No. 2000-0583
Application No. 08/955,984
motivated by the teachings of Levy to fabricate at least 30 of
the balloons disclosed by Levy.
With further regard to claim 29, which recites that the
tubes are dried to a moisture content of 0.3 weight percent or
less, appellants argue that balloons created using the drying
step to such a low moisture content would be physically
different than those that do not incorporate the drying step
and point out that Levy does not address the drying step
(brief, page 11). Even if the examples in appellants'
specification are sufficient to establish that the moisture
content at which the tube is expanded has an appreciable
effect on the characteristics of the final balloon in the
samples tested, these examples do not establish that this
effect is exhibited for a PET having a higher intrinsic
viscosity or for the diameters and wall thicknesses fabricated
by Levy. Moreover, claim 29 does not preclude a step of
storing the dried tube in a humid environment prior to the
expanding step and, thus, does not specify the moisture
content at the time of expansion. In any case, the salient
point here is that appellants simply have not provided
evidence that Levy's balloon is not the same as a balloon
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