Appeal No. 2005-2413
Application No. 09/912,865
sentence). Also, Vulcuren's disclosure that the dosage for the
additive should be increased to 7.0 phr when no sulfur is used is
hardly a teaching that the additive "should be used with little
or no sulfur," as argued by appellant (page 7 of Brief, first
paragraph). In the words of the examiner, "[t]here is a
significant difference in saying that little or no sulfur should
be used and saying that the usual amount of sulfur should be
reduced" (page 11 of Answer, second paragraph). We concur with
the following analysis given by the examiner:
Thus, in modifying a given composition, one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time of the invention would
determine the "usual amount" of sulfur (for that
composition) and modify said amount accordingly. In
the case of Oare, the "usual amount" of sulfur is
between 0.5 and 8.0 phr. It is evident that a slight
reduction in the extreme values of Oare results in a
range that is substantially equal to that of the
claimed invention and as such, one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time of the invention would have found
it obvious to include the claimed additive in an amount
between 0.5 and 5 phr and sulfur in an amount between
1.5 and 6 phr.
As to Figure A submitted by applicant, the
embodiments of Vulcuren are exemplary. In particular,
Vulcuren only teaches two embodiments: 0 phr of sulfur
and 7 phr of additive and 0.5 phr of sulfur and 2.5 phr
of the additive. A fair reading of Vulcuren would not
eliminate the use of sulfur concentrations greater than
1 phr as results from the inverse relationship depicted
in Figure A. It is emphasized that the teachings of
Vulcuren describe a slight reduction in the "usual
amount" of sulfur- this is highly dependent on the
"usual amount" of sulfur for a given composition
(varies from compositions).
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