Appeal No. 2004-2241
Application No. 10/059,577
in the art would readily recognize that the O'Dowd teaching of
'non-porous material' falls within these bounds" (id.).
Our review of appellants' specification finds nothing that
would indicate that the claimed porous membrane includes the non-
porous material of O'Dowd. We agree with appellants that the
specification clearly teaches that whatever material is chosen
for the membrane, it must be a porous material having a pore size
no greater than 5 microns. While the examiner states that the
specification places no lower limit on the pore size, we do not
subscribe to the examiner's implication that a membrane having a
pore size of 0 microns, i.e., a membrane without pores, is within
the scope of the claimed porous membrane. By definition, the
claim language "porous membrane" necessarily defines a membrane
having pores therein. The porous nature of the claimed membrane
serves as a distinction over the solid barrier that is permeated
by iodine vapor in accordance with the description in O'Dowd at
column 4, lines 6 et seq. It is well known in the art that non-
porous membranes may be permeable to certain materials by various
mechanisms.
Concerning the § 103 rejection of claim 15 over O'Dowd, and
the § 103 rejection of claims 6, 8, 11, 12 and 14 over O'Dowd in
view of Koch, the examiner has not explained why it would have
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