Appeal No. 1995-2659
Application 07/896,705
The secondary art fail to disclose a substantial
absence of a continuous liquid phase. Brouillard, though
teaching a fixed bed, submerges
the support material by pumping syrup over a bed of
particles and maintaining it at a level above the top of
the bed (col. 16, lines 42-45). Matsuzaki merely teaches
reforming fats in, for example, a column or fluid bed
bioreactor (col. 5, lines 50-52).
None of the references teach a porous bed of solid
support material in “the substantial absence of a
continuous liquid phase”. We are provided no reason why
one with ordinary skill in the art would modify Pratt to
conduct their process in an agitation-free unsubmerged
environment. Since “[o]bviousness can not be established
by hindsight combination to produce the claimed
invention,” In re Dance, 160 F.3d 1339, 1343, 48 USPQ2d
1635, 1637 (Fed. Cir. 1998), a prima facie case of
obviousness has not been established and, accordingly, we
reverse the rejection.
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