Appeal No. 2004-1810
Application No. 10/155,392
We note that the motivation to combine need not be
identical with appellant’s reasons/purpose. In re Dillon,
919 F.2d 688, 692, 16 USPQ2d 1897, 1901 (Fed. Cir. 1990)
(en banc), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 904 (1991). In the
instant case, Kennedy teaches that surfactants may be used
“to assist the latex in wetting and penetrating the mat of
fibers”. See column 9, lines 59-61. Newman expresses a
desire for the binder to “penetrate” the yarns. See column
5, lines 38-41. Thus, there is motivation to combine the
references in order to enhance the penetration of the
binder into the fibers. Also, Kennedy teaches to use a
fire resistant latex binder composition, having surfactants
therein, to provide improved fire resistance to a building
component, such as a gypsum board. See column 1, lines 10-
15, column 9, lines 56-68, and columns 15-16 of Kennedy.
Therefore, it would further have been obvious to have
utilized such a binder composition for the binder coating
of Newman (see column 5, lines 33-68 of Newman) to improve
the fire resistance properties of the scrim/resultant
building component of Newman. Appellant has not shown that
the surfactants disclosed in Kennedy are not the kinds of
surfactants that would provide the properties claimed in
claim 7.1 We therefore are not persuaded by appellant’s
arguments.
In view of the above, we affirm the rejection.
1 Appellant’s specification states that “the first and/or second
components may be coated with one or more surfactants, hydrophilic
compounds, foam booster/stabilizers and polar polymer topical
4
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