Appeal No. 2005-1806
Application No. 09/162,992
obviousness of selecting meso-carbon micro-beads as the
carbonaceous material of Akashi.
Appellants also maintain that Akashi and Ozaki are not
combinable because Ozaki "clearly disfavors the use of propylene
carbonate as an organic solvent of the organic electrolyte for
the non-aqueous electrolyte" (page 8 of principal brief, third
paragraph). However, Akashi, not Ozaki, discloses the use of
propylene carbonate as an organic solvent, and appellants have
not demonstrated why one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been dissuaded from using the carbonaceous material of Ozaki for
the negative electrode of Akashi. Nor have appellants
established that the use of propylene carbonate as the only
solvent in appellants' secondary cell would not experience the
disadvantageous decomposition of propylene carbonate with the
evolution of gas taught by Ozaki. As noted by the examiner, the
claims on appeal "require as little as 10 mol% of propylene
carbonate" (page 6 of Answer, first paragraph).
As a final point, we note that although appellants make
reference to specification data, appellants base no argument upon
objective evidence of nonobviousness, such as unexpected results,
which would serve to rebut the inference of obviousness
established by the applied prior art.
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