Appeal No. 2001-2168
Application No. 09/083,307
daltons or less.3 Claim 9 additionally recites that the
filter device has an inlet for connection to a pump (which
pumps the blood from the patient to the filter device) and
an outlet for connection to tubing to recirculate retentate
or treated blood to the patient.
The Lentz patent discloses a blood filtering system
that is used for the same purpose as appellant’s system.
In fact, appellant is the patentee named in the cited Lentz
patent. The blood filtering system disclosed in the Lentz
patent is basically the same as the system disclosed and
claimed in appellant’s instant application. Like
appellant’s system, the system disclosed in the Lentz
patent mainly comprises a membrane filter (17), a pump (16)
for pumping blood from the patient to the inlet of the
filter, and tubing (23) connected to an outlet of the
filter to recirculate treated blood to the patient. Like
appellant’s blood filter, the purpose of the filter in the
Lentz patent is to remove immunosuppressive components from
the recirculated blood to improve the response of the
patient’s immune system to infection or disease.
3 Consistent with appellant’s specification, this claim
limitation is interpreted to mean that the filter device is
effective to remove all blood components in the range from
zero daltons to and including 120,000 daltons.
5
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