Appeal No. 2005-2508
Application No. 09/874,314
that the evidence of record rebuts any inference of prima facie
obviousness (Brief, pages 6 and 14-16; Reply Brief, page 6).
Accordingly, we begin anew and weigh the countervailing evidence
for and against obviousness, determining on the totality of the
record whether the preponderance of evidence weighs for or
against obviousness. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24
USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Appellants argue that any possible prima facie case of
obviousness was overcome by the evidence in the original
application, supplemented with the additional Declaration of Mr.
Inoue under 37 CFR § 1.132 (hereafter the Inoue
Declaration)(Brief, page 14). We do not find this evidence
sufficient to overcome the prima facie obviousness established by
the reference evidence for the following reasons.
Appellants assert that Examples 1-5 demonstrate the
superiority of the claimed coatings over compositions lacking the
claimed copolymer tackifiers (Brief, page 14, referring to
Comparative Examples 1-2, italics added). However, appellants
have not explained how this comparison has any relevance to the
rejection on appeal, as no prior art has been applied where no
tackifier is present. In fact, it was well known in the art that
tackifiers improve the adhesive properties of rubber-based PSA
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