Appeal No. 2005-1693
Application No. 10/192,333
The sole issue in this appeal is whether the examiner properly rejected claims 1 through
11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Warby (WO ‘154)1
and Gleason (WO ‘356).2
I.
According to the appellant, medicinal inhalation devices are well-known pharmaceutical
drug delivery devices. They typically comprise a plurality of hardware components as well as a
number of internal surfaces that may come into contact with medicinal formulations during
storage and delivery. Often, the material comprising a particular component is found to be
unsuitable due to surface interactions between the material and the medicinal formulation. See
Brief at 3; Specification at 1, lines 14-29. In an effort to avoid these interactions, the interior
surfaces and components of medicinal inhalation devices have been coated with fluorocarbon
polymers, such as polytetrafluoroethylene, using various processes, including plasma coating.
See Specification at 2, lines 6-15.
However, these coatings are said to suffer several drawbacks. Specifically, continuous
plasma polymerization is said to produce fluorocarbon polymer films with a high degree of
cross-linking which results in film brittleness, an undesirable property for long term stability
during storage and/or use in conjunction with movable components. Furthermore, films
1 International Publication No. WO 99/42154 published on August 26, 1999, and naming Warby as the
inventor.
2 International Publication No. WO 97/42356 published on November 13, 1997, and naming Gleason, et al.
as the inventors.
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007