Appeal No. 1997-1155 Page 7
Application No. 08/376,199
the teachings of Tayebi, would not have suggested retention of a filter element comprising
sorbent granules united in the form of a porous unified body in the manner taught by Gordon
to arrive at the subject matter of claim 1.
For the foregoing reasons, we shall not sustain the examiner's rejection of independent
claim 1 or claims 2-14 and 21-23 which depend therefrom.
Turning next to the examiner's rejection of claim 16, which depends from claim 1 and
additionally requires that the filter element include a tab for facilitating manual removal of the
filter element from the retainer, we have reviewed the additional teachings of Lehman but find
nothing therein which overcomes the above-noted deficiency of the combination of Tayebi and
Gordon. It follows then that we shall also not sustain the examiner's rejection of claim 16 as
being unpatentable over Tayebi in view of Gordon and Lehman.
With regard to the examiner's rejection of claims 19, 20, 24 and 25 as being
unpatentable over Tayebi in view of Gordon and Jeffery, we note that Jeffery discloses a
method of making a rigidized fiber filter element which does not require a cage, ring or other
fabric support hardware (column 1, lines 9-12). The filter element is prepared from a mixture
of high-shrink polyester fiber and a polyester binder fiber in which particles of activated carbon
may be incorporated to remove toxic gases (column 4, lines 43-68). Jeffery does not provide
any suggestion to insert such rigidized structures within a retainer such that they are
compressed in a direction normal to the fluid flow direction and, thus, does nothing to
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