Appeal 2007-0121 Application 10/324,594 motion (fluidized) bed or for use in an entrained bed (col. 3, l. 54 – col. 4, l. 11). Given these teachings of Nelson and the well known and conventional use of separation and/or crushing equipment in obtaining appropriately sized solids, the Examiner has reasonably determined that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to employ a conventional solids separation step to remove inappropriately larger size particles and a conventional crushing step to reduce the size of expanded perlite particles in Nelson’s process for forming a sorbent (Answer 3, 4, and 6-9). This is especially so because Nelson discloses the option of forming sorbents for use in different types of beds (fixed, fluidized, or entrained), as discussed above. In this regard and as evidenced by Nelson’s concern with too large a size particle for the fixed bed option, the size of the particles used in forming the sorbent are an intuitively recognizable result effective variable for forming a sorbent. One of ordinary skill in the art would readily recognize that using relatively small particle sizes is particularly important when forming a product sorbent for fluidization or entrainment in a gas, as taught by Nelson. Thus, particle size is a result effective variable that must be taken into account when forming a product sorbent for fluidization or entrainment in a gas. Accordingly, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that Nelson implicitly suggests particle size requirements for the sorbent particles as being result effective for each type of bed for which the sorbent is made. In light of the above, we agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been led, prima facie, to use conventional separation and crushing equipment, including 6Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
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