Appeal No. 2002-0771 Page 5
Application No. 09/294,288
With regard to claim 10, Appellants argue that, because Torregrossa does not disclose or
suggest any pressure value at the inner surface of the porous wall, a person of ordinary skill in the
art would not be able to calculate a pressure difference across the wall as required by claim 10
(Brief at 16). Claim 10 is an apparatus claim. Therefore, the pertinent question is whether the
first and second passageways have a structure which possesses the capability of being operated to
create the claimed pressure difference of 5-20 psig. Torregrossa describes an apparatus with a
gas filled chamber 18, membrane and vortex chamber 12 of the same general shape as the first
passageway, membrane and second passageway depicted by Appellants (Fig. 3). Torregrossa
describes forming a vortex so that bubbles emerging from the membrane encounter a high
pseudo-gravitation field generated by the vortex which moves the bubbles to the center of the
vortex (Torregrossa at col. 1, ll. 22-26). As recognized by Appellants, in order for such
movement to occur, there must be a pressure difference across the membrane (Brief at 14, ¶ 6).
It is reasonable to conclude that the apparatus of Torregrossa is capable of producing a pressure
difference of 5-20 psig across the membrane.
While we affirm with respect to all of the claims on the above basis based on the fact that
all the claims stand or fall with claims 1 and 10, we also note that the Examiner advances several
other bases for concluding the claims are unpatentable. Namely, the Examiner finds that the
claimed shearing, bubble break up, and scattering inherently occur in the process described by
Torregrossa. The Examiner also advances an obviousness rationale based on routine
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