Appeal No. 2000-1747
Application No. 08/784,237
the rejection of claims 1-3, 7-9, and 13-14 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) over Whitbourne cannot be sustained.
The examiner finds that Johansson teaches that an
osmolality promoting agent may be mixed with a hydrophilic
polymer (Answer, page 10, citing column 2, lines 15-24). In
view of the examiner’s claim interpretation that only the
“improvement” need be shown, the examiner asserts that the
claimed subject matter is anticipated by this disclosure of
Johansson even though the reference discloses that the
substrate already has a hydrophilic polymer coating before the
osmolality promoting agent is applied (id.). However, in view
of our claim construction as set forth above, all of the
limitations of the claim must be considered, including the
limitation that the method starts with a “substrate which was
not previously provided with a hydrophilic coating” (see claim
1 on appeal; see also claim 7, where the medical device
contains a single hydrophilic coating). With respect to
separately argued claims 4-6 and 10-12 (Brief, page 17), we
note that Johansson does not teach urea and that urea is not
“a well known organic salt” (see the Answer, page 11, and
Hackh’s Chemical Dictionary 882 (3d ed., The Blakiston Co.,
-12-
Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007