Appeal 2007-4098
Application 09/962,887
Appellants’ purpose or utility described in the Specification, but only that
the claims on appeal “read on” something disclosed in the reference. See
Kalman v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789
(Fed. Cir. 1983).
Here, the Appellants have not challenged the Examiner’s finding at
page 3 of the Answer2 that:
Klabunde discloses a unit suitable for the flow through of a gas
or liquid (see col. 3, lines 19-25), which unit is at least partially
filled with an adsorbent in pellet form (col. 2, line 17)…
This reference further teaches that the pellets can consist
essentially of a mixture (col. 2, line 21) of oxides or
hydroxides of metals such as iron (see col. 2, line 23);
and one skilled in the fluid purification art would, on reading
Klabunde, at once envisage a mixture of iron oxide and iron
hydroxide as the pellet material. Compare Answer 3 with Br.
9-11.
The Appellants only argue (Br. 9) that:
Klabunde fails to disclose [its] agglomerated particles prepared
from an aqueous suspension and fails to describe a method for
preparing [its] agglomerated particles of [iron oxide], iron
hydroxide and/or iron oxyhydroxide without a powder
compacting step.3
2 The Appellants have not supplied any substantive arguments for the
separate patentability of any specific claims. See Brief in its entirety.
Therefore, for purposes of this appeal, we focus our discussion on
independent claim 1 alone pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii)(2004).
3 Contrary to the Appellants’ argument, the term “consisting essentially of”
recited in claim 1 does not preclude mechanically shaping (e.g., pressing or
compacting) wet powder from an aqueous suspension as is apparent from
page 7 of the Appellants’ Specification. See In re Herz, 537 F.2d 549, 551-
52, 190 USPQ 461, 463 (CCPA 1976); In re Lajarte, 337 F.2d 870, 873-74,
143 USPQ 256, 258 (CCPA 1964).
4
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