Appeal No. 2003-0645 6
Application No. 09/245,625
treatment would have suggested such an improvement to the floss
disclosed by Burch (Answer, page 4; Hill, col. 2, ll. 35-45; col.
5, ll. 23-43; and col. 6, ll. 11-16).
Appellants also argue that the person of ordinary skill in the
art would have no reasonable expectation of success in substituting
the elastomeric polymer of Burch for the non-elastomeric polymers
of Hill (Brief, pages 8-10; Reply Brief, pages 6-7). Appellants
submit that there is nothing in Burch or Hill that suggest that an
elastomeric fiber with the recited structure could absorb a
therapeutically effective amount of a chemotherapeutic agent
(Brief, page 12). These arguments are not persuasive. As
correctly stated by the examiner (Answer, pages 4-5), it is the
structure of the fiber that controls the amount of agent that can
be “loaded” (as taught by Hill), and both Burch and Hill teach
dental floss fiber with multiple strands or filaments (see Burch,
Figure 3 and accompanying text; see Hill, col. 6, ll. 17-35; col.
8, ll. 30-33; col. 11, ll. 45-50; and col. 13, ll. 58-66).
Therefore we agree with the examiner that one of ordinary skill in
this art would have had a reasonable belief that the multifilament
elastomeric floss fiber of Burch would have been successfully
loaded with active ingredient in the same manner as the
multifilament floss structure of Hill. Appellants have not shown
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007