Appeal No. 1998-2349
Application 08/586,874
of the anion exchange resin. This approach has the advantage
of preventing loss of anion exchange capacity, but has the
disadvantage of requiring the use of low-activated carbon to
remove the chlorine. The second approach is to place the
anion exchange resin upstream of the chlorine removal. This
approach has the advantage of permitting use of high-activated
carbon for chlorine removal and avoiding, due to the iron
being removed upstream of the high-activated carbon, any
reduction of the iron by the high-activated carbon, but has
the disadvantage of some loss of anion exchange resin
capacity. The fair suggestion, to one of ordinary skill in
the art, of this second approach would have rendered the
method recited in appellant’s claim 8 prima facie obvious to
such a person.
Appellant argues that one of ordinary skill in the art
would not have been motivated to remove the iron in Takatomi’s
method before the chlorine because such a person would have
expected that doing so would have the disadvantage of partial
loss of anion exchange resin capacity and would not have any
advantage (reply brief, page 2). The advantage, as discussed
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007