Appeal No. 94-3251
Application 08/071,690
that claim 1 reacts the Schiff base with methyl amine and
hydrogen, whereas Terada hydrogenates the Schiff base in the
presence of ammonia. Thus, the examiner urges that appellant
"has employed a methyl homolog of the prior art starting
material, and obtained the expected corresponding homologous
final product."
We disagree with the examiner's assertion that methyl amine
is a methyl homolog of ammonia. Adjacent methyl homologs are
organic compounds that are members of a homologous series of
compounds where each compound differs successively by a methylene
group (CH ). In re Henze, 181 F.2d 196, 85 USPQ 261 (CCPA 1950);
2
In re Jones, 149 F.2d 501, 65 USPQ 480 (CCPA 1945). Ammonia is
an inorganic compound and is not part of a homologous series of
organic compounds in our view. As pointed out by appellants on
page 8 of their brief, the properties of ammonia are signifi-
cantly different from those of organic amines, such that one of
ordinary skill in the art would not expect that methyl amine
would behave similarly to ammonia. The examiner has presented
no evidence that one of ordinary skill in the art would have been
motivated to modify the Tereda process of making primary amines
4
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