Appeal No. 1997-2632
Application No. 08/163,902
The examiner reasons, in effect, that composting would have
been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art as an
alternative to the heat treatment process of Weiergraber for
treating the spent filter aid to remove organic contaminants
and reclaim its insecticidal properties (answer, pages 4-6).
Appellant acknowledges that “it is known to mix natural
diatomite with soil or compost to create an insecticidal soil
amendment for flower or planting beds” (brief, page 5).
However, appellant asserts that the combined teachings of the
applied references would not have suggested the claimed
composting method for recovering an insecticidal form of
diatomite from used filter agent retaining organic
particulates. Rather appellant urges that the applied
references would have taught one of ordinary skill in the art
a method of making “an insecticidal soil amendment from
diatomite that was previously used as a filtering agent by
first heating the diatomite to regenerate its effectiveness as
an insecticidal agent, and then adding it to soil or compost
to make the amendment” (brief, page 6).
On this record, we agree with appellant. In particular,
we note that there is no suggestion in the teachings of the
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