Appeal No. 2006-1421
Application No. 10/434,397
1444, 24 USPQ2d at 1444. It follows that we hereby sustain the
examiner's § 103 rejection of claim 4 as being unpatentable over
Lefebvre in view of Mitchnick.
Other Issues
In the rejections advanced on this appeal, the examiner has
focused on Lefebvre's disclosure of Sample B in Comparative
Example 1 wherein a metallic powder is coated with a single
coating of a titanium alkoxide sol-gel. However, Lefebvre's
invention concerns metal powders sequentially (or
simultaneously) coated with a gellable sol and a polymer resin
(e.g., see the last paragraph in column 3 and Sample D in
Example 2 at columns 7 and 8). This embodiment of a metal
powder sequentially coated with a sol-gel coating (e.g.,
titanium alkoxide) followed by a resin coating appears to be
encompassed by independent claim 1. That is, the recitation in
this claim of "a coating on the particles consisting essentially
of an at least partially hydrolysed hydrolysable compound" does
not appear to exclude an additional coating of polymer resin in
accordance with Lefebvre's invention.
Upon receipt of this decision, the examiner (and the
appellants) should consider whether appealed claim 1 indeed
encompasses Lefebvre's sequential coatings of sol-gel and
-9-
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007