Appeal No. 1998-2425 Page 5
Application No. 08/656,871
Applying these principles, we note that claim 16, the
sole independent claim on appeal, employs closed "consisting
of" language in describing the adhesive product formation step
of polymerizing an aqueous emulsion of "butyl acrylate, an
anionic emulsifier and a non-ionic emulsifier . . . in the
presence of at least one water-soluble initiator . . . ."
Given that required polymerization step conducted solely in
the presence of the specified components and the required
"emulsifying-in (meth)acrylic acid . . ." and "adding a second
redox initiator (RI) to complete the polymerization . . ."
steps of claim 16, we determine that the claimed product
preparation method is limited to a method wherein the
(meth)acrylic acid is phased in after the first mentioned
polymerization of claim 16 has been conducted. Otherwise, the
"consisting of" language employed with respect to the first
mentioned polymerization of claim 16 would be violated.
Moreover, this claim construction is consistent with the core
and shell polymerization called for in that claim and with
appellants' specification. See, e.g., pages 5-7, page 11,
lines 3 and 4 and the Examples. Hence, it would be reasonable
to expect that the product of claim 16 and the claims
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