Appeal 2007-2208
Application 10/650,510
teaching/suggestion of the claimed particle size: and (2) Have Appellants
refuted any alleged prima facie case of obviousness made out by the applied
prior art with evidence presented in the Specification that allegedly
establishes unexpected results for the claimed subject matter? We answer
these questions in the negative and affirm the Examiner’s obviousness
rejections.
Considering the Examiner’s first stated rejection, we note that
Appellants argue the rejected claims together as a group. Thus, we select
rejected claim 1 as the representative claim.
Appellants acknowledge that Maroldo discloses particles prepared by
partial pyrolysis of polysulfonated vinylaromatic polymer resins (Br. 5,
Maroldo, col. 1, ll. 5-7 and col. 3, ll. 8-13).
Maroldo discloses that the particles can be used as adsorbents or as a
catalyst support (col. 6, ll. 10-24). Maroldo discloses that the particles can
be made in the form of beads and that the beads or particles can be of a size
formed via conventional suspension polymerization or the particles can be
smaller or larger and can be ground and/or sieved to achieve desired sizes
(col. 4, ll. 22-28 and 49-56). From this disclosure, the Examiner essentially
takes the position that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art to form particles of a suitable size for an adsorbent or catalyst support
utility as taught by Maroldo, including the formation of particles of an
average size within the scope of the representative claim 1 range (Answer
9).1 We agree with the Examiner.
1 The Examiner also took the seemingly alternative position that Maroldo is
silent respecting the particle size of their polysulfonated polymer particles
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