Appeal No. 1998-2248
Application No. 08/552,407
over Paige in view of Hildreth and Oppegaard (Answer, pages 9
and 11). We reverse all of the examiner’s rejections
essentially for the reasons stated in the Brief and the reasons
below.
OPINION
Appellant and the examiner do not contest the findings of
the examiner regarding Paige (see the Answer, pages 4-6; Brief,
page 12). However, appellant and the examiner disagree as to
the scope of the claims, e.g., claim 1, with the examiner
stating that the “comprising” language of the claim does not
exclude the gravity concentration steps of Paige while
appellant argues that his invention requires only a single
separation and need not undergo additional processes (Answer,
pages 6 and 12; Brief, page 16). The examiner’s further
position is that, regardless of the claim construction, it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
eliminate a process step in Paige along with its function
(Answer, pages 6 and 12).
Implicit in our review of the examiner’s obviousness
analysis is that the claim must first have been correctly
3
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