Appeal No. 95-1641
Application No. 07/825,927
Appellants appear to argue that the Yamauchi reference
does not teach, nor would have suggested, the claimed fructose
crystal size. Appellants, however, acknowledge that the
Yamauchi reference describes fructose particles having sizes
of, inter alia, 0.35 mm. See Brief, page 10. Note that the
claimed mean crystals size of at least about 0.35 mm embraces
the crystal size described by the Yamauchi reference. In any
event, we find that the Yamauchi reference teaches growing
crystals through controlling evaporation speed. See column 8,
lines 55-57. We also find that the final size of fructose
crystals is determined by the size of seed crystals (the
initial size of fructose crystals). That is, one of ordinary
skill in the art would have reasonably expected that the use
of large fructose seed crystals would have resulted in
fructose crystals having larger crystal sizes, e.g., at least
about 0.35 mm. Thus, we conclude that the formation of
fructose crystals having the claimed particle sizes in the
process of Yamauchi through employing enhanced evaporation
speed and/or larger seed crystals would have been prima facie
obvious to an artisan with ordinary skill. This conclusion is
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