Appeal No. 1997-4336
Application No. 08/279,317
and every element of appealed claim 20. Further, we share the
appellants’ view (appeal brief, page 7) that the subject
matter of appealed claim 20 would not have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art over Fenton because the applied
prior art lacks the requisite motivation, suggestion or
teaching to produce a solution (as contrasted to a
precipitated suspension) as in the appellants’ claimed
invention.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)/103 over Sander
The examiner submits that the appealed claims are
anticipated by the disclosure found in Sander’s Example 1.
Specifically, the examiner’s reasoning is as follows:
Example 1 shows a pressure vessel which
incorporates therein the polyethylene and pentane.
The pentane reads on appellants’ instantly claimed
hydrocarbon and the polyethylene is the same as
appellants’ instantly claimed polyolefin.
Appellants’ claim identifies the co-solvent as being
selected from the group consisting of “inert gases”.
The Examiner has noted that nitrogen falls within
the scope of this claim limitation. Therefore
Example 1 clearly shows polyethylene in a single
phase solution with the instantly claimed
hydrocarbon and co-solvent, those being pentane and
nitrogen. In view of this disclosure, appellants’
claims are not novel. Admittedly, it seems somewhat
confusing that the solution is formulated by an
inert gas. The Examiner maintains however that it
is reasonable to presume that the instantly claimed
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