Appeal 2007-3962
Application 10/005,846
Claim 8
Turning to claim 8, Appellants contend that the Examiner admits that
Kondo is silent with regard to the Gurley air permeability of the membrane,
and, therefore, Kondo does not anticipate claim 8 because Kondo does not
teach all the elements of the claim (Reply Br. 9). With regard to the
obviousness of claim 8, Appellants do not argue claim 8 apart from claim 1
(Reply Br. 13-18).
Claim 8 recites a method with a step of providing a microporous sheet
having a Grurley air permeability less than 35 seconds/10cc. The Examiner
finds that the Gurley air permeability is either anticipated by Kondo, or an
obvious optimization motivated by the desired to provide the required
permeability for use as a battery separator (Answer 5).
Appellants have not shown a reversible error in the Examiner’s
rejection. Appellants do not dispute the Examiner’s determination of
obviousness. Kondo describes air permeability as an important property and
discloses a range of workable permeabilities (Kondo ¶¶ 0013 and 0015).
The evidence supports the Examiner’s determination that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have optimized the air
permeability for the membrane.
Moreover, Kondo describes microporous sheets having specific air
permeabilities (Kondo, Table 1). The air permeabilities are determined with
a Gurley air permeability meter based on JIS P-8117 and reported in terms
of 25 micron membrane thickness (Kondo ¶ 0027), a different basis than that
claimed. It is reasonable to conclude that the air permeability values of
Table 1 are within Appellants’ range based on the similarities in the porosity
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