Appeal 2006-2968
Application 10/039,481
in the Appellant's Specification and Drawing disclosure sufficiently to
convey to a person of skill in the art that the Appellant had possession of the
invention defined by the rejected claims at the time the application was filed.
For example, independent claims 32 and 46, as well as the claims
which depend therefrom, encompass a method wherein the ionomer coating
provides to the pigmented polymer particles a chargeability which is less
than (or the same as) the chargeability of an uncoated particle. The
Appellant's disclosure does not describe such a method and would not have
conveyed to an artisan that Appellant had possession of such a method. As
more fully explained in the Answer, this is because Appellant's disclosure
describes a method wherein the ionomer coating enhances or increases the
chargeability of, or reverses the polarity of, particles which, in the absence
of ionomer coating, have no or weak chargeability such that they would be
of little or no utility in electrostatic imaging (Specification 6-7).
Similarly, independent claim 33, as well as the claims which depend
therefrom, encompass a method wherein the ionomer coating enhances
particle chargeability to an extent that the coated particles can be used in a
particular process for electrostatic development of electrostatic images but
not in other electrostatic development processes. Again, Appellant's
disclosure would not have conveyed to an artisan that Appellant had
possession of a method wherein the coated particles were provided with
enhanced chargeability adequate for one particular process but not another.
As detailed above and in the Answer, the Specification and Drawing for this
application describe only increasing or enhancing particle chargeability or
reversing particle polarity with respect to electrostatic development
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