Appeal No. 2004-0606
Application 09/781,730
The appellants’ statement regarding the difference between
drying and curing is correct. If a solvent-containing resin is
heated to a below-curing temperature, the solvent can be removed
to produce a dry resin without any curing taking place. If a
solventless liquid resin is heated to a below-curing temperature,
the resin does not become dry but, rather, remains a liquid
resin. That is why one of ordinary skill in the art would have
interpreted Johnson’s statement that the liquid epoxy resin,
after it had been heated, “had been converted into a dry,
flexible, semi-cured state” (col. 7, lines 46-47), to mean that
both the physical drying process and the chemical semi-curing
process, which does not cause drying, had taken place.2
The appellants argue that a crosslinked material can be a
tacky, elastomeric, tough and glassy material, and that such a
material inherently is dry (request, page 4). The relevant
issue, however, is what one of ordinary skill in the art would
have considered Johnson to mean by the liquid resin being
2 In the event of further prosecution the appellants should
attempt to 1) obtain Dow Chemical Company product brochure # 296-
396-783 for Dow epoxy resin 521-A80 which, Johnson states, was
used to make the liquid epoxy resin in example 1 (col. 7,
lines 32-34), or 2) obtain other information which describes that
resin. We were not able to find that product brochure or
information on that resin on the Internet at the time of our
decision.
3
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