Appeal No. 1996-2530
Application 08/246,324
making and recovering a "structure," whereas "powder" is
mentioned only in the context of a starting material and
never as a product to be produced and recovered.
In a number of places in the record, examiner has
been unequivocal about Wood teaching a powder. For
example, the Final rejection (paper no. 7, p. 3) states
that "the prior art [i.e., Wood] discloses preparing a
ceramic or metal powder." But no such disclosure can be
found. Examiner refers to Wood's abstract for a teaching
of a "finely divided sinterable" material which "appears
to be equivalent to a powder" (final rejection, paper no.
7,
p. 4) but, as Wood's abstract makes very clear,1 this
finely divided sinterable material is an additive
dispersed in the foam prior to heat treatment and not the
product produced or recovered. Also, as cited earlier,
in analyzing the scope of the prior art, the examiner's
answer (p. 6) states that "Wood discloses a process of
preparing a structure ...
1 "The invention disclosed is for ceramic foam structures
prepared by reacting an isocyanate capped polyoxyethylene polyol
reactant with large amounts of an aqueous reactant containing
finely divided sinterable ceramic material. The resultant foams
having the sinterable ceramic material dispersed thereon are
heat treated to decompose the carrier foam under firing
conditions which sinter the ceramic particles resulting in a
rigid ceramic foam structure."
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