Appeal No. 2005-0209
Application 09/274,014
endpoint of Girot’s range” (reply brief, page 2). Appellants further contend that even if “Girot
discloses supports with a range of porosities that abuts the porosity range of the claimed supports
. . . a prima facie case of obviousness can be overcome by showing the recited range achieves
unexpected results,” citing In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1577-78, 16 USPQ2d 1934, 1936-37
(Fed. Cir. 1990) (reply brief, page 2). In this respect, appellants allege that the interactive
polymer network is only in the pores of the supports of Girot, and not on the external surface of
the support as claimed (id.), and that the “design and mechanism of the inventive supports are
substantially different from those disclosed by Girot,” noting a number of characteristics of the
interactive polymer network of the reference and certain characteristics of the supports in the
Girot Examples (id., pages 2-3). Thus, appellants contend that “[i]n contrast to Girot’s supports,
. . . the inventive supports exhibit high density, low porosity, and high external surface area,”
arguing that rapid separation of large macromolecules from smaller molecules is achieved where
“the large pore volumes described by Girot are not useful for this purpose” (id., pages 2-3).
Appellants further submit that the combination of Girot and Davis would not have
suggested a porosity of less than 30% because “this would be contrary to Girot’s purpose” of
providing an interactive polymer network in the pores,” rendering “Girot unsuitable for its
intended purpose” (brief, pages 15-16). The examiner notes that appellants offer “no evidence or
reasoning to support this” position (answer, page 11). Appellants then submit that the
examiner’s position that motivation to combine is provided by the disclosure in Girot that
zirconium oxide can be a porous mineral oxide solid support (answer, pages 5 and 6) is
untenable because there is “no objective evidence of record that an artisan would have been
motivated to combine the chromatographical supports of Girot with the teachings of Davis,
which disclosed methods of fabricating sintered zirconium ceramics for use as . . . catalyst
supports” (reply brief, page 5). Appellants further contend that the chromatographic supports of
Girot possess “high sorptive capacity and high porosity” and are unrelated to the catalyst
supports of Davis, and thus, the combination would not have “implicated” the claimed supports
with a pore volume of less than 30% to one of ordinary skill in the art (id., pages 5-6).
Appellants would have us focus on Girot’s preferred porous volume range of 0.8 to 1.2
cm3/gr of solid material even though as the examiner points out, the reference discloses that the
typical range is from about 0.2 to about 2 cm3/gram (Girot, col. 8, ll. 40-44 and 53-55; answer,
- 7 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007