Appeal No. 1997-4457
Application 08/250,617
pages 6-7). The rubber composition disclosed by Saitoh also contains trimercaptotriazine along with
silica, a resorcin donor, a methylene donor and an organic sulfur-donating compound but no cobalt
containing material, and the metal substrate is brass plated wire. Davis ‘770 employs rubber stock
which can contain an inorganic salt of cobalt and a rosin-derived resin, and the metal substrate can be
brass plated or zinc plated steel. The rubber stock of Davis ‘838 contains an organic complex of cobalt
and at least one halogenated polymer, and the metal substrate is brass plated or zinc plated steel.
We find that the combination of Muraoka, Nakamura and Saitoh would have reasonably
suggested to one of ordinary skill in this art that a rubber compositions containing a cobalt salt can be
modified by adding thereto trimercaptotriazine which is used in view of the similarity of rubber
compositions of Muraoka and Nakamura which contain the same sulfenamide, with the reasonable
expectation that the resulting rubber composition can be combined with brass plated wire to prepare a
vulcanized composite material in which the rubber bonds to the plated wire because Muraoka specifies
a brass alloy plated wire, Nakamura teaches alloys of copper and zinc and Saitoh shows the use of
trimercaptotriazine in a rubber composition containing a sulfur-donating compound which bonds to
brass plated wire. The examiner recognizes that this combination of references does not teach a
galvanized wire as seen from the reliance on the Davis references for the first time in the answer for the
disclosure of zinc coated steel, and takes the position that the coating on a wire is “believed not to be
critical to method for improving cohesion” because Nakamura and Saitoh, which disclose the
trimercaptotriazine additive demonstrate that “improved adhesion is obtained even though zinc coating
was not used” (answer, pages 3 and 6; emphasis in original omitted). In response to appellants’
arguments in the reply brief, the examiner points out in the supplemental answer that the wire plating
alloy of Muraoka “may contain at least 36% weight of Zn” (page 1) and seem to suggest the
combination of the Davis references, Nakamura and Saitoh on the basis that the latter shows the use of
trimercaptotriazine “to improve adhesion (cohesion) between rubber and metal surfaces” (page 2).
We are of the view that whether viewing the evidence in the applied references from the
perspective of modifying the methods employing cobalt containing material with zinc or brass plated
wires of the Davis references by using trimercaptotriazine or of modifying the method employing cobalt
containing material with a brass alloy plated metal of Muraoka by using trimercaptotriazine and
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