Appeal No. 1997-3524 Page 2
Application No. 08/336,402
appealed claims “do not stand or fall together” (brief, page 8).
Consequently, we shall address appellants’ claims separately to
the extent justified by appellants’ arguments. We note, however,
that merely pointing out differences in the scope of claims is
not considered to be an argument as to why the claims are
separately patentable. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7) and (c)(8)
(1996). An understanding of the invention can be derived from a
reading of exemplary claim 1, which is reproduced below.
1. A porous member comprising a porous body having an
outer surface portion and a number of internal pores,
said outer surface portion of the porous body being
covered by a surface layer comprised of fine particles
which are impregnated in the outer surface portion of
the porous body and which have been subjected to a heat
treatment to form restricted passages which are in
communication with, and smaller in size than said
pores.
The sole prior art reference1 of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims is:
Pall et al. (Pall) AU Pat. No. 275864 June 11, 1964
Claim 25 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph as lacking descriptive support in the original
1 The examiner refers to U.S. Pat. No. 5,296,288 and U.S. Pat. No.
5,268,031 at page 11 of the answer. However, those patents have not been
relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the claims. Consequently, we have
not considered the teachings of those patents in deciding this appeal. See In
re Hoch, 428 F.2d 1341, 1342 n.3, 166 USPQ 406, 407 n.3 (CCPA 1970).
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