Appeal No. 2003-1010
Application 09/357,393
THE REJECTION
Claims 1-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Haug in combination with Doublier and Yamada.
OPINION
We reverse the aforementioned rejection. We need to address
only claim 1, which is the sole independent claim.
It is undisputed that Haug, which is discussed in the
appellant’s specification (page 2, line 16 - page 4, line 26),
discloses each step of the appellant’s claim 1 except that Haug
uses, in the appellant’s step (a), an inorganic base rather than
an organic base to neutralize the alginic acid (answer, page 4,
reply brief, page 3).2
The portion of Doublier relied upon by the examiner
discloses that “[t]he less easily soluble polysaccharides are the
more hydrophilic ones” (page 289).
The portion of Yamada relied upon by the examiner discloses
that alginic acid derivatives include salts of alginic acid and
organic bases (col. 12, lines 63-66).
2 The appellant states that it is the use of an organic base
to neutralize the alginic acid which enables the solution to
contain 5 wt% or more of alginic acid and enables the
polyguluronic acid to have a degree of polymerization of less
than 20 and to be substantially free of mannuronic acid
(specification, page 5, lines 1-15).
3
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