Appeal No. 2006-2817 Page 5
Application No. 10/734,979
including tricarbamoyl triazines which are disclosed in the Jacobs2 patent. Id., ¶¶ 41
and 48. The Examiner states that “Jacobs anticipates, in examples 4 and 5,
compounds within the subgroup as claimed in claim 1.” Answer, page 7. The Examiner
acknowledges that Sadvary does not teach the remaining steps of claim 1. Id., page 4.
The Examiner relies on the specification for its teaching that it is conventional in
the art to apply coatings to automobiles by spraying the compositions, such as the
composition described by Sadvary, on to the substrate surface in a spray booth, and
then to discharge the overspray as wastewater “directly or indirectly” into the sewage
system. Id., pages 4-5 (citing specification, ¶ 3 and 8). The Examiner concludes that
“using a sewage treatment plant … at least a portion of [the] compound of formula I
[would be removed] from the wastewater.” Id., page 5. These steps correspond to
steps (b)-(e) of claim 1.
Appellants state that the claimed Formula I compounds are advantageous
because they can be removed from wastewater collected after the coating process,
permitting them to be safely discharged into the sewage system.” Brief, page 2. They
urge that Sadvary does not suggest the claimed invention because he does not provide
direction on how to select those curing agents that would avoid aquatic toxicity, the
problem associated with the only commercially available triisocyanate triazine. Brief,
pages 4-5.
In addressing whether the claimed subject matter would be obvious, we focus
our review on step (a) of claim 1, particularly the obviousness of utilizing the compounds
2 Jacobs et al. (Jacobs), U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,541, issued Jan. 28, 1992, which is incorporated by
reference. Specification, ¶ 48. The Examiner also referred to U.S. Pat. No 4,939,213, which is a
divisional of U.S. Pat. No. 5,084,541.
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