Appeal 2007-1897
Application 10/044,846
DISCUSSION
The present invention is directed to a biodegradable absorbent
material comprising a “polysaccharide (e.g. starch) cross-linked by an ether
linkage consisting of a backbone chain of atoms, said backbone chain of
atoms consisting of two terminal ether oxygen atoms” (Spec. 1: 5-9, and
5: 12-13), wherein “said backbone chain of atoms compris[es] at least one
-O-Alkylene- group, wherein [the] Alkylene [group] comprises one or more
-CH2- groups; [the] Alkylene [group] may more particularly comprise from
1 to 5 -CH2- groups (e.g. . . . methylene (i.e., -CH2- ), ethylene (i.e.
-CH2CH2- ), n-propylene (i.e. -CH2CH2CH2- ), etc . . . .)” (Spec. 6: 5-8,
emphasis added).
As claimed, however, the cross-linked polysaccharide has at least two
consecutive -O-Alkylene- groups, as is apparent from representative claim 4,
the only independent claim on appeal, which reads as follows:
4. A cross-linked polysaccharide, said cross-linked polysaccharide being
a polysaccharide cross-linked by a backbone chain of atoms, said
backbone chain of atoms having the formula 2
wherein each Alkylene consists of one or more unsubstituted -CH2-
groups, and wherein n is an integer ranging from 1 to 100.
As explained by Appellants, formula 2 “compris[es] a polyalkylene
glycol backbone, not an alkylene glycol backbone” (Reply Br. 2), because
“there is a static O-alkylene group . . . [c]hemically linked to . . . a repeating
number of O-alkylenes, (inside the square brackets). These O-alkylene units
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013