Appeal No. 2003-0413
Application 09/148,262
the examiner and the appellant should address on the record
whether, because the coating resists wetting by most liquids and
few materials will permanently adhere to the nonstick surface, it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
use a reduced amount of release agent in the article being
molded.4
Also, the appellant discloses that it was known in the art
to reduce the problem of sticking of resin to a mold surface not
only by including a release agent in the plastic, but also by
spraying a release agent onto the mold surface (specification,
page 1, lines 17-22). The examiner and the appellant should
address on the record whether an article made using such a mold
surface having a coating of release agent meets the requirements
of the appellant’s independent claims, i.e., 1) an eliminated or
reduced need for a release agent in the plastic (claim 1) or a
reduced level of release agent in the plastic (claims 26 and 27),
and 2) an enhanced surface.
In addition, the appellant’s claim 1 merely requires
elimination or reduction of the need to include a release agent
4 The appellant’s specification does not indicate that
“reduce” requires any particular degree of reduction. Thus, the
appellant’s claims encompass an infinitesimal reduction in the
conventional amount of release agent.
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