Appeal No. 2005-1662
Application No. 09/996,505
OPINION
For the reasons which follow, we cannot sustain any of the
rejections advanced by the examiner on this appeal.
Concerning his rejection of independent claims 1 and 11, the
examiner expresses his obviousness position in the paragraph
bridging pages 3 and 4 of the answer as follows:
Appellant’s disclosure of prior art REDY™ teaches a
sorbent cartridge having several layers of sorbents
such as zirconium phosphate (ZrP), zirconium hydrous
oxide (HZO), activated carbon, etc., (specification
pages 5-8 and figure[s] 1 and 8), but does not teach
sodium zirconium carbonate as one of the layers as in
claims l and 11. Polak teaches a sorbent capsule
comprising sodium zirconium carbonate (see col 5 line
68 - col 6 line 11) as phosphate ion absorber and/or
for elimination of urea. It would be obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention to
use the teaching of Polak in the teaching of REDY™ for
sorption of urea and phosphate ions because SZC is the
state of the art for phosphate ion absorption and/or
because of the problems associated with ZrP used by
REDY as taught by Polak (see Polak col 3 lines 11-36
and col 6 lines 1-2).
In his “Response to Arguments” section of the answer, the
examiner further elucidates his obviousness viewpoint with the
following language on pages 12 and 13 of the answer:
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007