Appeal No. 1996-1942 10
Application No. 07/977,834
requisite monomer, free radical initiator and the heating step required by claim 1
directed to a method and accordingly fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with respect to any of the method claims before us. Accordingly, the Sawai reference
alone lacks essential method steps required by the claimed subject matter.
As to the secondary references to Ozono alone or further in view of Wolinski, the
deficiencies of Sawai are not remedied by either Ozono or Wolinski. Ozono discloses
microcapsules prepared by dispersing a hydrophobic acrylate or methacrylate monomer
or oligomer and partially polymerizing the composition by UV light. See Abstract and
column 1, lines 26-35. The acrylate and methacrylate monomers include 2-ethylhexyl
acrylate and methacrylate. See column 2, line 15. We find that the process disclosed by
Ozono is an improvement over the prior art, wherein interfacial polymerization is utilized
to form the walls of the microcapsule as in Sawai, in that the outer layer of the monomer
polymerizes to form the microcapsule walls and the inner layer of monomer remains in
the form of a monomer. See column 3, lines 18-29 and 43-48. A polymerization
initiator such as an organic peroxide may be added to the acrylate or methacrylate
monomer. See Ozono, column 3, lines 50-54. However, polymerization is initiated
only through the application of ultraviolet light in the absence of heat. Although, the
examiner has stated that “[h]eating would appear to be inherent or implicit in UV
radiation step of Ozono,” see Answer, page 7 and “[e]ven if it weren’t, it would further
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