Appeal No. 2002-0184 -11-
Application No. 09/058,537
The examiner relies on Examples 1 and 2 which have melt viscosities allegedly
resulting in melt viscosity ratios and a melt viscosity index that fall within the scope of the
claimed subject matter. See Answer, page 5. We disagree. Neither the copolymers of
Example 1 nor 2 fall within the scope of the claimed subject matter. There is no
perfluoroalkylvinyl ether present in any of the copolymers prepared in Examples 1 or 2.
Furthermore, the hexafluoropropylene content of each of the examples is 12.5%. In
contrast the claimed subject matter specifically limits the amount of a third monomer to,
“up to 5 mol% of other fluoromonomers not containing hydrogen.” Accordingly, the
results relied upon by the examiner in Examples 1 and 2 are outside the scope of the
claimed subject matter and fail to reflect the required melt flow index of from 80 to 2500
as required by the claimed subject matter. Stated otherwise, there is no reason to believe
that the same results would have been obtained were polymers to have been prepared
within the scope of the claimed subject matter. We conclude that the examiner has been
picking and choosing from unrelated parts of the Nakagawa references. Accordingly, the
rejection of the claimed subject matter over Nakagawa is not sustainable.
The Rejection Over Scheirs in view of Nakagawa and Admissions of Appellant
The examiner finds that Scheirs discloses that melt processable
tetrafluoroethylene/fluorovinyl ether copolymer, preferably containing 1-5 mole % of the
elected species of a perfluorovinyl ether is known (page 223, 1st paragraph). It is also
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