Appeal No. 2006-1864
Application No. 10/167,922
skill in the art to formulate a mixture of the presently claimed
low and high molecular weight retarding agents for reducing the
level of calcium and sulfate ions in a high purity brine.
Inasmuch as it is well settled that it is a matter of obvious-
ness for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine two or more
materials when each is taught by the prior art to be useful for
the same purpose,1 it would have been prima facie obvious for one
of ordinary skill in the art to formulate a retarding agent
comprising a mixture of the low molecular weight and high
molecular weight compounds admittedly taught by Axelrad.
Appellants state that "the results which have been obtained
with the specific combination of high and low molecular weight
retarding agents according to the present invention are sur-
prisingly good and could not have been expected on the basis of
the teachings of those references" (page 7 of principal brief,
last paragraph). However, appellants have not referenced any
specific results which establish unexpected results, let alone
results that are commensurate in scope with the appealed claims.
It is not within the province of this Board to scour the record
and ferret out results that support appellants' argument.
1 In re Kerkhoven, 626 F.2d 846, 850, 205 USPQ 1069, 1072 (CCPA 1980).
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