Application of Barrett
Decision Date | 06 May 1971 |
Docket Number | Patent Appeal No. 8495. |
Citation | 440 F.2d 1391,58 CCPA 1155 |
Parties | Application of Wayne T. BARRETT, Moises G. Sanchez and Milton C. Vanik. |
Court | U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA) |
Alvin Guttag, attorney of record, William T. Bullinger, Cushman, Darby & Cushman, Washington, D. C., for appellant. Joseph P. Nigon, Clarksville, Md., of counsel.
S. Wm. Cochran, Washington, D. C., for the Commissioner of Patents. Fred E. McKelvey, Washington, D. C., of counsel.
Before RICH, ALMOND, BALDWIN and LANE, Judges, and RE, Judge, United States Customs Court, sitting by designation.
This appeal is from the decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals affirming the examiner's rejection of claim 6 in appellants' application serial No. 613,060, filed January 5, 1967, to reissue patent No. 3,164,554, granted January 5, 1965, on an application which was a continuation-in-part of application serial No. 693,511, filed October 31, 1957. We reverse.
Claim 6 is for a process for producing thoria sol, which is a colloidal solution of thorium dioxide, by electrodialysis of an aqueous solution of thorium salts. According to the specification, the particles of thorium dioxide in the sol prepared by this method may be coated with zirconium and the resultant product used as a breeder "blanket" in nuclear power reactors. Claim 6, with subparagraphing supplied and the language principally in contention emphasized, is as follows:
THE REJECTION
Claim 6 recites electrodialysis with "an anion permeable membrane." The specifications state generally "Preferred techniques suitable for anion removal are: * * * Electrodialysis using anion permeable membranes" and both contain an "Example I" which recounts the dialysis of 4000 grams of a solution of thorium nitrate in a cell "divided by an ion exchange membrane of Amberplex A1." The examiner held this disclosure inadequate because the ion exchange membrane in Example I was identified only by its trademark designation, and the board affirmed on this ground. The examiner pointed out that appellants had "cited no references which teach any method of preparing * * * Amberplex A1 or what its formula or chemical composition may be." The board made similar comments, emphasizing that, "as far as the record shows, Amberplex A1 is a proprietary material whose composition is maintained in secrecy" and that future availability of the material was at the manufacturer's sufferance, and additionally pointed out that the physical characteristics of Amberplex A1, such as thickness and porosity, were not set forth in Example I.
Appellants argue that their general disclosure that their process can be carried out using "anion permeable membranes" is sufficient to support the controverted recitation in claim 6 and that the disclosure in Example I that they had carried out the process using an Amberplex A1 anion permeable membrane was "excess" not...
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Application of Glass
...the disclosure in the application evidences a completed invention. We left the above-stated subsidiary question open in In re Barrett, 440 F.2d 1391, 58 CCPA 1155 (1971), see footnote 2, because decision on it was there unnecessary. It was also unnecessary to decide it in Argoudelis.5 Since......
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