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
-3-
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