Appeal No. 2000-0132
Application No. 08/934,791
not indicate that Hagel and Mikes individually, or in
combination, teach or suggest such a feature. Hence, we conclude
that the examiner has not established a prima facie case of
obviousness regarding the subject matter of claims 21, 23, 44 and
46.
Recognizing the deficiency of Hagel and Mikes, the examiner
further relies on Schaeffer to reject claims 21 and 23 under
35 U.S.C. § 103.7 We find that Schaeffer teaches that
polysaccharide separating agents can be covalently bonded to any
inorganic support, including glass beads, to provide a high
degree of purification with high flow rates in chromatographic
separation. See column 2, lines 8-25, together with column 1,
lines 15-40. The polysaccharide separating agents generically
described in Schaeffer include the polysaccharide separating
agent, i.e., cellulose triphenyl carbamate, described in Hagel.
See, e.g., Schaeffer, column 1, lines 15-17.
Thus, the appellants’ arguments to the contrary
notwithstanding, we determine that one of ordinary skill in the
art would have been led to employ an inorganic carrier, such as
7 We note that the examiner carelessly left out claims
44 and 46 in this rejection. In the event of further
prosecution, the examiner should include claims 44 and 46 in this
rejection.
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