Appeal 2006-1219
Application 10/636,148
The Examiner’s position with respect to the claimed polymeric bead
having no void spaces having a diameter greater than 5 µm is that
(1) Meitzner “expressly discloses that it is well known in the art [ ]that all
crosslinked polymers contain micropores” (Answer 4); (2) Meitzner’s
“addition of the precipitant will result[ ] in creation of additional
microchannels that will result in decrease of density and creation of reticular
polymeric structure” (id.); and (3) “[l]owering DVB amount and eliminating
the precipitant would inherently render the resulting beads, with the claimed
physical characteristics as obtained by substantially the same process with
substantially the same starting materials” (id.).
Appellants specifically argue:
Meitzner contains no disclosure at all related to
beads with "no void spaces having a diameter
greater than 5 µm." The final rejection first
attempts to find a suggestion in Meitzner to omit
the "precipitant" used to produce macroporous
beads, and then the rejection asserts that this would
result in a polymer "with no microchannels"
[Br. 6].
The Examiner agrees with Appellants that Meitzner lacks disclosure
of beads with "no void spaces having a diameter greater than 5 µm”
(Answer 6). However, the Examiner maintains that “the polymers disclosed
in Meitzner are obtained by conventional suspension polymerization
technique in the absence of oxygen and with the only difference of using the
precipitant [and using differing amounts of DVB]” (id.).
The Examiner’s contention that practicing Meitzner’s process without
the use of a precipitant and with lower amounts of DVB would inherently
result in polymeric beads with “no void spaces having a diameter greater
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