Appeal No. 2006-2375
Application No. 10/283,198
purities than other alkyl(meth)acrylates wherein the ester
moiety comprises 5-18 carbon atoms (col. 5, lines 33+)" (page 6
of Answer, second paragraph).
Appellants state that "controlling the relative SP [solvent
parameter] values for the two different coatings of the
composite and thereby the interaction between the base coat
layer and clear coat layer is very important for obtaining
excellent appearance of the multi-layer coating" (page 5 of
Brief, paragraph four). Appellants also state that "[t]o avoid
mixing of these two layers, selecting two resins which make up
layers with different solubility is a known technique" (page 5
of Brief, last paragraph). Appellants then contend that whereas
it was known in the prior art to use a base coat composition
having a lower SP than the resin in the clear coat composition,
"in the present invention, the resin contained in the base coat
coating composition actually has a higher SP than the resin
contained in clear coat coating composition" (page 6 of Brief,
last paragraph). Significantly, however, as noted by the
examiner, the appealed claims fail to define any SP values for
the base coat and clear coat compositions, let alone any
relative SP values. Furthermore, the examiner makes the
relevant point that the original disclosure makes no mention of
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