Appeal No. 2002-1430
Application 08/935,365
suggested a multi-block section or length meeting the limitations
in claims 6, 7 and 18 [sic, 28], thereby leading to an
appropriate § 103(a) rejection of these claims. Although the
same references were employed by the examiner to reject claims 6,
7 and 28 under § 103(a), they were applied in a different manner
to conclude that it would have been obvious in view of Roberts or
Berkebile to modify the length of the underdrain block disclosed
by Brown ‘388 in order to form longer blocks necessary to support
longer filter media beds of liquid filtration systems. Finding
nothing in the disclosures by Roberts and Berkebile of extruded
multi-block sections or lengths intended to be cut into
individual blocks which would have suggested providing the
individual block disclosed by Brown ‘388 with a longitudinal
length any longer than its disclosed about 4 foot length, we
declined to sustain the rejection (see section III, pages 10 and
11 in the decision). In doing so, we found the Roberts,
Berkebile and Brown ‘388 references to be wanting only as to the
particular manner in which they were combined by the examiner to
support the rejection. Our suggestion that the examiner
reconsider the patentability of claims 6, 7 and 28 involves a
different application of these references, and consequently a
different issue. Accordingly, it does not run afoul of any
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