Appeal No. 1996-2015
Application No. 08/181,539
Claims 20-22 and 24-33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Lee in view of China or Eppenbach ‘288 in view of Eppenbach ‘178. We affirm. 3
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the appellants’
specification and claims and to the respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner.
We make reference to the examiner’s answer (Paper No. 26, mailed
June 13, 1995) for the examiner’s reasoning in support of the rejection and to the appellants’ brief
(Paper No. 25, filed March 15, 1995) for the appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
THE INVENTION
Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to an apparatus for producing micron-sized particles
having a narrow size distribution range by suspension polymerization of a monomeric composition. The
apparatus comprises (a) independent first and second vessels for supplying a disperse phase
component containing the monomeric composition and a continuous phase component comprising a
medium, respectively, through (b) associated independent passageways directly into a uniform shear
force generating field of a disperser where they contact each other for the first time to form a
3By an apparently inadvertent error on the examiner’s part, claims 27, 30 and 31 have not been listed in the
statement of the rejection on page 3 of the answer. It is quite clear, however, that claims 27, 30 and 31 should be
included in the rejection since these claims were listed in the statement of this rejection on page 2 of the final Office
action mailed September 15, 1994 (Paper No. 21). Moreover, the appellants in their brief have considered claims 27,
30 and 31 to be included in the above noted prior art rejection (e.g., see pages 1 and 9). Under these circumstances,
we also consider claims 27, 30 and 31 to be included in this rejection and further consider the examiner’s
aforementioned error to be harmless.
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