Appeal No. 1999-0700 Page 9
Application No. 08/590,580
as defined by the appellant as the starting material in the Kok process, the examiner has also failed to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness of the subject matter of claims 1-4, 6-8 and 10-23.
Accordingly, we are also constrained to reverse the examiner's rejection of claims 1-4, 6-8 and
10-23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kok.
Turning next to the examiner's rejection of claim 5, we have reviewed the additional teachings
of Clements but find nothing therein which overcomes the above-noted deficiencies of the examiner's
rejections of claims 1-4, 6-8 and 10-23 based on Kok alone. It follows then that we must also reverse
the examiner's rejection of claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Kok in view of
Clements.
Finally, the examiner has rejected claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Kok in view of Fleischer. The examiner finds that Fleischer "teaches the method of using sludge from a
tissue mill to make an absorbent material" and states that "[t]here is no apparent unobviousness involved
in choosing resources from any specific source vs. choosing resources from a different source" (final
rejection, page 4).
Fleischer discloses the use of fibrous cellulosic waste materials, such as waste paper, newsprint,
paper mill reclaimed cellulose fiber, etc., as a starting material in producing a useful product, such as
animal litter (column 3, lines 26-33). The disclosed process includes the steps of agglomerating a moist
blend of the fibrous material to form individual agglomerated particles, compacting the surface of the
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