Appeal No. 2000-1031
Application No. 08/591,330
mutually exclusive. The examiner has not pointed to any
evidence, or provided any acceptable reasoning, establishing
that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to
modify the composition of Hughes so as to arrive at a
composition encompassed by appealed claim 1.
On this record, we are constrained to reverse the
examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as well.
Other Issues
As we discussed above, the substantially linear ethylene
polymer described in Hughes and the metallocene polyethylene
recited in appealed claim 1 are mutually exclusive. This
difference notwithstanding, we observe that the blend
composition described in Hughes is substantially identical to
the appellants’ claimed composition. For example, Hughes
describes a preferred ethylene polymer having a Mw/Mn value of
1.5. (Column 3, line 5.) Using the mathematical relationship
at column 3, line 3, one of ordinary skill in the art would have
determined that the I10/I2 value may be 6.13. On the other hand,
the metallocene polyethylene recited in appealed claim 1 would
have an Mw/Mn value of greater than 1.5 (e.g., 1.5001) when I10/I2
is 6.13. Thus, a preferred composition of Hughes differs from a
composition encompassed by appealed claim 1 only in that the
Mw/Mn is 1.5 instead of 1.5001.
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