Appeal No. 1997-2284
Application 08/278,107
founded. Accordingly, we reverse this rejection.
Welsh discloses a carbide foam which can be used as a
catalyst or catalyst support, can contain the elements recited
in appellants’ claim 1, and has an internal pore surface area
between about 1 and about 2000 m /g (col. 2, lines 20-21 and2
51-53; col. 3, lines 18-19; col. 6, lines 26-57). The
admitted prior art relied upon by the examiner (answer,
page 3) is appellants’ acknowledgment that the starting
polymer foams used to make their carbide foam are available
commercially (specification, page 6).
The examiner argues that Welsh discloses a carbide foam
having a surface area of 42 m /g (col. 11, line 24) and that2
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to use a purchased carbon such as that used by appellants
because doing so would provide the carbon required by Welsh
(answer, page 3). The carbide foam which is disclosed as
having a surface area of 42 m /g, however, is not disclosed as2
having the pore sizes, density or low level of residual
element and crystallites recited in appellants’ claim 1.
The examiner argues that the carbiding reactions of
appellants and Welch have the same mechanism and that the
3
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