Appeal No. 97-3640
Application No. 08/406,272
the "wet" streams described by the reference disclose or suggest the "adding" step required by the
claims. For the reasons outlined above, we are not persuaded that the examiner has established a
prima facie case of obviousness.
The rejection is reversed.
4. Rejection of claims 1-25 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over HP in view of Cheron
At the outset, we note that although appellant has indicated that claims 1-11 and 13-15 stand
or fall together (Br. page 4), he has separately argued the CO impurity content of claims 7-8 and 20-
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23; the weight ratio of soda lime to CO of claims 9-11 and 20-23; the temperature and pressure
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parameters of claims 16-19; and, the weight ratio of "added" water to olefin of claims 13-15 (Br. page
18, paragraph two). In addition, appellant has indicated that claim 12 does not stand or fall together
with claims 1-11 and 13-25 because claim 12 specifically calls for a water-saturated, olefin-containing
fluid (Br. page 4). Thus, we will consider the merits of the rejection as it pertains to (a) claim 1, (b)
specific parameter claims 7, 9, 13, 16 and 18. (c) water-saturated, olefin-containing fluid claim 12.
a. Claim 1
As to claim 1, HP describes removing low levels of acidic impurities, such as CO , from natural
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gas, ethylene, propylene and LPG containing less than 50 ppb acid impurities using a mixture of NaOH
and Ca(OH) , i.e., soda lime (entire excerpt).
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