Appeal No. 94-2999 Application 07/672,286 Harandi or Feldman. According to the examiner, “[i]t would have been obvious and within the purview of a routineer in the art to sterilize the fermentation vessel of the primary reference [Tegtmeier] with alcohol as the secondary reference [Heden] teaches that alcohol is a known sterilant for fermentation vessels” and that “[i]t would have been obvious to a routineer in the art that the alcohol produced in the fermentation process could have been used as the source of alcohol for the sterilization” and that “[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to return the alcohol used to sterilize the reactor set forth above to the distillation tower as such is known in the art as shown by Harandi ... and Feldman ... to save on waste of the particular stream and that this alcohol could then be returned to the product stream for further processing as the chemical makeup of the streams would be the same as the stream coming from the fermentation step, only higher in alcohol concentration” (final Office action, pages 3-4). We will not sustain either of these rejections. We fully share the appellant’s view that the § 112, first paragraph, rejection of the appealed claims is improper for the reasons fully detailed on pages 5 through 12 of the reply brief. 3Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007