Appeal No. 2004-2118 Page 12
Application 09/329,502
step of West would be an actual impediment to the obtention of a
zeolite surface area as herein claimed especially given the
minimum levels of hydration encompassed by the disclosure of
West.
Consequently, we agree with the examiner that West, taken
with or without the admissions in the specification, renders the
subject matter of claims 1-6, 8 and 9 obvious within the meaning
of 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
§ 103(a) Rejections of Claims 10-13 and 18-20
Appellants have not furnished separate arguments for this
grouping of claims in the brief with the exception of claim 20.6
Consequently, we select claim 10 as a representative claim for
this ground of rejection with respect to claims 10-13, 18 and 19.
We do not find appellants’ arguments with respect to a
difference in the catalyst employed persuasive of unobviousness
of the subject matter of claims 10-13, 18 and 19 for the same
reasons advanced above with respect to our discussion of the
6 While appellants refer to claim 19 at page 13 of the
brief, claim 20 was obviously intended since claim 20 specifies a
surface area as discussed by appellants, not claim 19.
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