Appeal No. 1998-3145
Application 08/432,285
the basic and novel characteristics of the appellants’ claimed
process and composition. The examiner apparently is of the
view that it was well known in the art that aliphatically
bound polyisocyanates have better color stability, which is
important for clear coatings, than aromatically bound
polyisocyanates, and that it therefore would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art to eliminate Wildemuth’s
at least one aromatically bound isocyanate group to obtain
better color
stability. The examiner makes no argument that the
appellants’ “consisting essentially of” language fails to
exclude Verheist’s polyisocyanates which must contain at least
80 wt% of aromatically bound isocyanate groups (page 5, lines
18-21).
In order for a prima facie case of obviousness to be
established, the teachings from the prior art itself must
appear to have suggested the claimed subject matter to one of
ordinary skill in the art. See In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048,
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007