Appeal No. 1997-1464
Application No. 08/235,542
particular distribution and concentration gradient (e.g., see
the first paragraph in column 2, the last paragraph in column
4, the paragraph bridging columns 5 and 6 and independent
claim 1 of the patent).
In short, the rejection advanced by the examiner on this
appeal is fatally premised upon the examiner’s erroneous
position that the above quoted disclosure of Paersch teaches
adding patentee’s first and second binders in combination. It
follows that we cannot sustain the examiner’s section 103
rejection of the claims on appeal as being unpatentable over
Paersch.
Other issues
As explained earlier, the invention disclosed and claimed
by Paersch clearly adds the first and second binders to coal
particles separately rather than in the form of a mixture as
required by the appealed claims. Nevertheless, it is
significant that Paersch compares his invention of adding the
first and second binders separately (see the example in column
5) to a comparative experiment in which the first and second
binders are added as a mixture (see Comparative Experiment B
in column 6). Thus, an issue is raised as to whether the
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