Appeal No. 1998-1353 Page 8
Application No. 08/488,288
powders in the same manner as other powders for the reasons set forth in Perry at page 8-57 and
Browning at pages 148-149. The Examiner indicates that Browning discusses the agglomerating
processing steps at pages 161-170. This section of Browning discusses agglomeration by agitation.
Browning indicates that each material must be evaluated independently to determine whether agitation
will produce agglomeration (page 161, col. 1, lines 8-10). Browning further indicates that the particles
must be in a size range that will permit a pellet or ball to form (page 161, col. 2, lines 13-14). The
Examiner has provided no evidence that those of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention
understood that monodisperse oxide particles of diameter between 10 nm and 10 µm were of a suitable
size range for agglomeration by the method of Browning. From this disclosure, one of ordinary skill in
the art would not have had a reasonable expectation of success of forming a free-flowing powder of
agglomerates containing 1-500 µm diameter monodisperse oxide particles. Therefore, we agree with
the Appellants that the generic descriptions of agglomeration provided by Perry and Browning do not
render the preparation and process of the claims obvious (Brief, page 6).
We conclude that the Examiner has failed to establish a prima facie of obviousness over either
Browning or Perry.
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