Appeal No. 2006-3248 Page 2
Application No. 10/617,585
been coated with the refinishing composition, it must be cured and dried. Id., page 1.
Because of the presence of hazardous volatile organic solvents in the coating
compositions, vented enclosures are typically utilized for the curing drying process. Id.
These take up significant floor space. Id. As a consequence, “there exists a continuing
need for fast curing coating formulations which cure under ambient conditions while still
providing outstanding performance characteristics.” Id., page 2, lines 3-5. The
application describes a coating composition that cures under ambient temperatures and
which has a low volatile organic content. Id., page 1, lines 11-13.
There are two grounds of rejection on appeal. Claim 5 stands rejected as
indefinite. Claims 1-16, 18-21, and 26 stand rejected as anticipated.
Claim construction
Claims 1-16, 18-21, and 26 are on appeal. Claims 22-25 have been withdrawn
from consideration pursuant to Appellants’ election of species. Brief, page 1.
Dependent claim 17 is also pending, but the Examiner stated that it would be allowable
if rewritten to include all the limitations of independent claim 1. Final office action, page
6. We select claims 1 and 5 as representative of the groupings of claims subject to the
rejections under § 102 and § 112, second paragraph, respectively.
1. A coating composition comprising crosslinkable and crosslinking
components, wherein said crosslinkable component comprises:
a copolymer having on an average 2 to 25 crosslinkable groups
selected from the group consisting of hydroxyl, acetoacetoxy, carboxyl,
primary amine, secondary amine, epoxy and a combination thereof; a
weight average molecular weight ranging from about 1000 to 4500; a
polydispersity ranging from about 1.05 to 2.5; wherein said copolymer is
polymerized from a monomer mixture comprising one or more non-
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