Appeal No. 2001-0061 Page 4
Application No. 08/720,851
conjunction with the disclosure of Takada ‘655 (which is incorporated by reference into
the specification of Ramesh; see lines 30-32 in column 1 of Ramesh), reflects that
Ramesh deliberately intends his multivalent anionic salt to insolubilize or deposit his
polymer, thereby forming a heterogeneous composition. Viewed from this perspective,
the disclosure of Ramesh is antithetical to obtaining a homogeneous composition in the
absence of patentee’s polymer dispersant (which the examiner equates to the here
claimed second water-soluble polymer (b)).
Thus, when considered as a whole, the evidence before us clearly weighs in
favor of a determination that the dispersion composition of Ramesh is not capable of,
and indeed was not intended by patentee to be capable of, forming a homogeneous
composition in the absence of his water-soluble dispersant (i.e., the here claimed
polymer “(b)” according to the examiner). It follows that the “homogeneous
composition” feature claimed by the appellants would not be inherently possessed by,
and would not have been rendered obvious by, the dispersions disclosed in Examples
13 and 15 of Ramesh as urged by the examiner. We cannot sustain, therefore, the
examiner’s § 103 rejection of appealed claims 1-22 as being unpatentable over
Ramesh.
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