Appeal No. 1997-1791
Application No. 08/485,304
In the rejection of the appealed claims, the examiner relies
upon the following references:
Young 2,856,268 Oct. 14, 1958
DeWolf, II et al. (DeWolf) 4,474,824 Oct. 2, 1984
Cohen et al. (Cohen) 4,595,578 Jun. 17, 1986
Welsh et al. (Welsh) 5,110,769 May 5, 1992
The present application is a continuation of U.S.
Application No. 08/080,436, filed June 18, 1993, now abandoned.
An appeal was taken to this Board in the parent application and,
in a decision dated July 20, 1999, a merits panel of the Board
affirmed the examiner's rejection of the appealed claims under
35 U.S.C. § 102 over the same Cohen patent presently applied by
the examiner. The claims of the instant appeal contain a
limitation not present in the claims of the prior appeal, namely,
the hydrogel has a volatiles content of at least 40 wt.%. In
addition, appellants now rely upon two declarations that were not
argued in the prior appeal.
Appealed claims 1-5 and 13-16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(b) as being anticipated by Cohen.
We have thoroughly reviewed the respective positions
advanced by appellants and the examiner. In so doing, we find
that we cannot sustain the examiner's rejection.
Although Cohen discloses inorganic hydrogel having the
presently claimed pore volume, average particle size and fineness
of grind, the examiner appreciates that Cohen is silent with
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