Appeal No. 2003-0667 Page 5
Application No. 09/514,699
With respect to the first portion of the argument, i.e., that Wellings does not teach the
liquid developer reconstitution compound of claim 1, we note that the Examiner acknowledges
this fact and cites Lane for a teaching of a liquid developer concentrate containing a
reconstitution compound. Appellants do not dispute the Examiner’s finding that the surfactant of
Lane is a reconstitution compound as required by claim 1.2 Wellings’ silence does not equate to
a reversible error in the rejection.
The second portion of the argument is unclear. Possibly, Appellants intended to argue
that the Examiner has not established that Wellings teaches the use of a second liquid developer
as required by claim 1. This argument is not persuasive because the “working developer
solution” of Wellings meets all the requirements of the claimed “second liquid developer”.
Appellants further argue that Wellings does not teach: 1) dispersion of first and second
liquid developers; 2) formation of a second liquid developer by dispersion of a first liquid
developer concentrate in a carrier liquid into additional carrier liquid; and 3) redispersing the
reclaimed undeveloped developer cake in a second developer liquid (Amended Brief at p. 8).
These arguments are not persuasive because claim 1 recites five steps and Wellings describes a
process corresponding to those five steps. Specifically, Wellings describes:
1. dispersing a first liquid developer concentrate (concentrated developer solution
contained in replenisher 39) into an additional carrier liquid (in dispersion system
2Appellants’ specification indicates that the claimed “liquid developer reconstitution compound”
encompasses polymeric surfactants such as those disclosed by Lane (compare specification at pp. 14-16 with Lane at
col. 3, l. 59 to col. 4, l. 52).
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