Appeal No. 2000-0119
Application 08/785,711
least partially occupied by the fluid, and selecting the ceramic
material from alumina, alumina precursors, and silica precursors.
What the examiner finds missing from Rosinski with regard to
independent claim 8 on appeal is any teaching of causing the
fluid in the pores to rapidly expand “without a chemical change”
and specific optimum or workable ranges for porosity volumes.
To account for the above-noted differences between appellants’
claimed subject matter and Rosinski, the examiner looks to Grube,
urging that this patent teaches a process for fragmenting a
material wherein a fluid trapped in pores of the material rapidly
expands without a chemical change (Abstract, lines 14-19) and the
fluid undergoes a phase change from a liquid to a gas (Abstract,
lines 14-19). From the collective teachings of the two applied
references, the examiner concludes that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
appellants’ invention to provide the comminuting process of
Rosinski with an expanding fluid without a chemical change in
view of Grube so as to provide a safer and more controllable
comminuting process. With regard to the remaining claims and
limitations subject to this ground of rejection, the examiner
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