Appeal No. 2007-0218
Application No. 10/730,143
orthobisphenol and parabisphenol while the present invention claims the
combination of two orthobisphenols.” (Br. 14, emphasis omitted.)
Appellant also argues that “there is no teaching or suggestion to
combine the references to obtain the combination of a silver iodide-based
photothermographic material with the specific combination of
orthobisphenols of the present invention.” (Br. 17.) Instead, Appellant
argues that “the Examiner has used impermissible hindsight to ‘pick and
choose’ individual components of the claimed invention from a wide variety
of references in order to ‘recreate’ the claimed invention.” (Id.)
We are not persuaded by these arguments. As discussed above, we
agree with the Examiner that both Suzuki and Yoshioka suggest using two
different orthobisphenol reducing agents in combination. Suzuki states that
“reducing agents may be used as combinations of two or more thereof” (col.
16, ll. 35-36); that 2,4-dialkyl substituted orthobisphenols are among the
“most preferred reducing agents” (col. 15, ll. 35-38); and that such
compounds are “effective for preventing discoloration upon exposure to
light” (col. 16, ll. 56-58).
Yoshioka describes a photothermographic material containing “one or
more phenol compounds as the reducing agent” (¶ 0008) and states that
o-polyphenol compounds of formula (I), which encompasses the
orthobisphenol compounds of formulas (R-1), (R-2), and (R-3), are preferred
because of their high heat-developability (¶ 0025 and ¶ 0027). Yoshioka
also specifically discloses compounds within formulas (R-1), (R-2), and
(R-3) of claim 1 (pp. 7-8). Based on the teachings in Suzuki and Yoshioka,
we find that the Examiner has set forth a prima facie case that it would have
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