Appeal No. 2002-2314
Application No. 09/213,671
Int. 1990). Here, the Examiner has failed to provide a basis in
fact and/or technical reasoning to support his determination that
Daude’s solvent would necessarily and inherently allow patentee’s
resin to become impregnated in the PVC substrate as required by the
appealed claims. Contrary to the Examiner’s belief, the mere fact
that Daude’s solvent dissolves the PVC component of his reactive
composition does not support a determination that the solvent also
would allow the dissolved resin to become impregnated in the PVC
substrate. This is so for a number of reasons.
First, patentee’s composition-dissolving solvents such as
methylethylketone are not the same as the solvents used by
Appellant (i.e., tetrahydrofuran alone or in combination
with acetone) and thus cannot be regarded as having the same
impregnation-effecting characteristics of the Appellant’s solvents.
Second, the fact that patentee’s solvent dissolves the PVC
component of his reactive composition does not necessarily mean
that the solvent would also dissolve and thus permit impregnation
of the PVC substrate. This is because the degree of similarity
between the PVC component and the PVC substrate is unknown. Even
assuming this solvent were capable of solvating the PVC substrate,
we find nothing and the Examiner points to nothing in the Daude
reference which supports a determination that the solvent of
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