Appeal No. 2001-2546
Application 09/067,915
in the process of Saladin, the combination of air and oxygen is to be avoided (brief, pages 10-11)
and the examiner admits as much (answer, page 6, last sentence). Finally, appellants submit, that
the present claims require “only zirconium oxide” while Hori discloses particles having “an outer
shell of aluminum oxide and a core formed of zirconium oxide” (brief, page 11). The examiner
responds that “the instant claims do not exclude an outer shell of aluminum oxide” but provides
no reasoning in support of this interpretation of the term “zirconium dioxide powder” (answer,
page 7). We find that the plain language of this term in the appealed claims, when considered in
light of the specification, means zirconium dioxide per se.
We agree with appellants that these deficiencies of Zirngibl, Saladin and Hori are not
cured by Jacobson or Lee, and the examiner does not provide any other combination of
references, including reliance on the United Kingdom Patent Specification, which would
establish that one of ordinary skill in this art would have modified the teachings of Zirngibl,
Saladin and Hori so as to arrive at the claimed methods of appealed claims 3, 4 and 7. We
further find that the examiner has not separately established that one of ordinary skill in this art
would have reasonably expected zirconium dioxide powder produced by the processes taught in
these combinations of references to be identical or substantially identical to the claimed
zirconium dioxide powder encompassed by appealed claims 1, 2 and 6. Accordingly, we reverse
the grounds of rejection under § 103(a).
The examiner’s decision is reversed.
Reversed
- 4 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007