Appeal No. 1996-3017
Application No. 08/851,810
ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable
expectation of successfully isolating the product alkyl-
pyrazine from the aqueous medium utilizing the
recrystallization method disclosed by Bonzom. Appellant has
not apprised us of any reason, and we are not aware of one,
why one of ordinary skill in the art would have been dissuaded
from applying Bonzom's recrystallization technique to an
aqueous medium comprising an alkyl-pyrazine simply because the
reactant mixture may contain amounts of an acetylene starting
reactant rather than an acyloin starting reactant. Also,
since distillation, extraction and recrystallization are all
conventional techniques used in the art to isolate compounds
from aqueous medium, we are satisfied that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have found it obvious to simply
determine which of the known techniques produce the optimum
yield without the need to resort to undue experimentation.
Compare In re Boesch,
617 F.2d 272, 276, 205 USPQ 215, 219 (CCPA 1980). We find no
flaw in the following reasoning of the examiner:
The different modes of purification would be
considered alternately and even sequentially usable
since isolation is a separate consideration for the
synthetic chemist once a product mixture is obtained
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