Appeal No. 2006-0585
Application No. 09/917,751
been motivated to make the previously discussed substituent replacement in order to obtain
unsymmetry and the attendant solubility improvements taught by Sato.
For the reasons set forth above and in the answer, it is our determination that the
examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to his proposed
combination of the Liao, Cho and Sato teachings, thereby resulting in a data storage media which
satisfies the requirements of representative independent claim 40. At this point, it is appropriate
to acknowledge that the appellants’ brief includes undeveloped assertions to the effect that their
disclosed and claimed dyes possess certain “advantages” (brief, page 10). However, it is
significant that the appellants do not characterize these advantages as being unexpected, thus
evincing nonobviousness, with respect to the applied prior art discussed above. More
importantly, in the evidence appendix filed (i.e., via facsimile transmission) December 5, 2005
pursuant to 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(ix), it is clearly indicated that no evidence is relied upon by the
appellants in the subject appeal. For these reasons, we consider the appellants’ brief to present
argument but no evidence in opposition to the examiner’s obviousness conclusion.
As previously indicated, we are unpersuaded by the appellants’ arguments for
obviousness. We hereby sustain, therefore, the examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 30-49 as
being unpatentable over Liao taken with Cho in view of Sato. For analogous reasons, we also
hereby sustain the examiner’s alternative § 103 rejection of claims 30-49 as being unpatentable
over the aforementioned references and further in view of Ishida.2
The decision of the examiner is affirmed.
2 A discussion of the Ishida reference is unnecessary for purposes of resolving this appeal.
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