Appeal No. 2002-1229
Application No. 09/140,809
5-6) and makes the following conclusion of obviousness on page 7
of the answer:
Therefore, in light of Mochizuki’s disclosure that
printed substrates are coated with a protective layer
to fix the ink and prevent discoloration, and Lehr’s
disclosure that printed cellulosic substrates are
subjected to after-treatments to improve waterfastness,
as well as the motivation for using a cationic polymer
disclosed by Maslanka . . . as described above, it
therefore would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to coat the printed substrate of Kado
. . . with a cationic polymer in order to produce a
printed substrate which has improved waterfastness,
reduced discoloration, and improved strength, and
thereby arrive at the claimed invention.
The examiner’s aforenoted position is deficient in that
Maslanka’s ultimate polymer, while admittedly disclosed as being
useful inter alia as a coating for paper, does not constitute a
“cationic, water-soluble polymer” of the type here claimed.
Instead, this ultimate polymer is a graft copolymer which is
expressly and repeatedly described as being water-insoluble
(e.g., see lines 13-33 in column 4). This ultimate polymer is
obtained by graft copolymerizing an ethylenically unsaturated
monomer, such as styrene, onto a water-soluble cationic
prepolymer, and, as properly indicated by the examiner, this
cationic water-soluble prepolymer is comprised of monomers which
include those here claimed. However, it is appropriate to stress
that Maslanka contains no disclosure of using this prepolymer for
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