Appeal No. 1998-2325
Application 08/484,114
THE REJECTIONS
The claims stand rejected as follows: claims 1, 3, 6-14
and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as being anticipated by Iwahara,
and claims 1, 3, 6-14, 19 and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Hazbun.
OPINION
We reverse the aforementioned rejections. We need to
address only claim 1, which is the sole independent claim.
Rejection over Iwahara
Iwahara states that “[a] mixed conductor in which both oxide
ions and electrons are mobile has a potential use for separating
oxygen from air or other oxygen-containing gases, since oxygen
only permeates electrochemically through such a material”, and
reports test results showing the mixed conduction and
electrochemical oxygen permeability in sintered oxides of the
ZrO2-Tb4O7 system (page 907).
The appellants argue (brief, page 8) that Iwahara’s
disclosures that the sintered oxides “show patterns which
correspond to a fluorite-type of face-centered cubic phase”
(page 908), that “the lattice constants were measured”
-3-3
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