Appeal No. 96-0158
Application No. 08/110,003
that the applied references generally and the Marek patent
specifically contain no teaching or suggestion of the here
claimed feature of uniformly infiltrating a porous material
substrate with a carbon foam precursor material until the
porous material is saturated and curing the thus saturated
porous and precursor materials. Indeed, the appellants
contend that “Marek ... actually teaches away from saturation
by removing the excess solution by ‘pressing’ and/or ‘air-
drying’ prior to curing” (Brief, page 7; emphasis in
original). We cannot agree with the appellants.
As properly indicated by the examiner, appealed claim 1
does not exclude a pressing or drying step. Indeed, the
subject specification expressly discloses a drying step (e.g.,
see the first paragraph on specification page 6). In any
event, the method disclosed by Marek does not require a
pressing or drying step (e.g., see the patent claims which
recite no such steps and note lines 55-56 in column 2 wherein
patentee discloses that “[a]fter removing the soaked form, it
... may be pressed” (emphasis added)). Finally, it is our
finding that the pressing step disclosed by Marek is not for
the purpose of desaturation as the appellants essentially
4
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