Appeal 2006-3116
Application 10/809,140
formed gel . . . and this is more likely what is taught” (Br. 3-4). Appellants
further argue that one of ordinary skill in this art “reading Sawhney would
not be motivated to provide a solid composition as taught by Tanabe since
Sawhney . . . specifically teaches to not deliver a solid hydrogel” (id. 4,
original emphasis deleted). We disagree.
We find no language in appealed claim 1 and in the written
description in Appellants’ specification on which to read into the term
“hydrogel” in that claim the limitation that the crosslinking reaction is
complete at the time that the “hydrogel” is “extruded, that is, forced out, of
the delivery device in the form of a “hydrogel string.” In our opinion, all
that claim 1 requires is that the prepolymer material must be cross-linked to
the extent that the material upon being forced out of the delivery device
exhibits the properties of a hydrogel to any extent and is sufficiently cross-
linked to maintain to any extent the form of a “string,” that is, a filament, at
least upon extrusion. We find no limitation which states that the extruded
material must remain in the “string” form indefinitely, and indeed, the
claimed method would be practiced if the “string” existed for any period of
time after extrusion.
We further find from the written description in the specification
(specification 3-8) and from the disclosure in Sawhney (col. 3, ll. 15-22,
col. 3, l. 55, to col. 7, l. 56, and col. 9, l. 55, to col. 10, l. 25) that both
Appellants and the Sawhney use a delivery device with two lumens
emptying into a mixing chamber for forming the same prepolymers and
gelation initiators into an at least partially gelled, that is, partially
crosslinked, hydrogel material. Indeed, Sawhney would have disclosed that
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