Ex parte BINDER et al. - Page 3




          Appeal No. 95-0073                                                          
          Application 07/896,154                                                      


          carefully reviewed the combined disclosures of Zupancic et al.              
          ('953) and Zupancic ('122), we find that these references are               
          insufficient to support a conclusion of obviousness of claims               
          requiring appellants' nanofiltration step.                                  
               "Nanofiltration" is a term of art.  As can be seen from a              
          review of appellants' specification, "nanofiltration" is a                  
          membrane separation process which uses a pressure driven membrane           
          having rejection characteristics between those common in reverse            
          osmosis and ultrafiltration.  The membrane is called a                      
          "nanofilter" membrane.  In nanofiltration, rejection is low for             
          salts with monovalent anion and non-ionized organics with                   
          molecular weight below 150.  Rejection is high for salts with di-           
          and multivalent anions and organics with molecular weight about             
          300.  See the specification, page 6, first paragraph, and page              
          10, first full paragraph.  Also, see U.S. Patent No. 4,944,882,             
          particularly column 2, lines 33 through 41.  For the sake of                
          completeness, we enclose a copy of the '882 patent with this                
          opinion.  In our judgment, the examiner has not established that            
          the combined disclosures of Zupancic et al. ('953) and Zupancic             
          ('122) would have led a person having ordinary skill to the                 
          claimed process which requires (1) nanofiltering a first dextrose           
          composition having a solids content of about 80 to 97% by weight            
          dextrose and at least 2% of saccharides selected from the group             

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