Appeal No. 1997-1959
Application 08/351,908
with the breadth of the processes encompassed by the appealed claims.4
We observe that appellant has also argued that the teachings of Kellner II when combined with
Kellner I would not have suggested the claimed processes (brief, pages 10-11). However, Kellner II
was not combined with Kellner I and Smith for that purpose. In this respect, we note that appellant has
limited his argument to two groups of claims of which claims 1 and 8 are representative and we have so
considered them above. Thus, appellant has not directly addressed the rejection of claims 11, 12 and
14 over the combined teachings of Kellner I, Smith and Kellner II, in which Kellner II is relied on by the
examiner as evidence that it was known to regenerate aluminum fluoride supported palladium catalysts
(answer, pages 6-7), as recognized by the examiner (see supra n. 1).
Accordingly, based on our consideration of the totality of the record before us, we have
weighed the evidence of obviousness found in the combined teachings of Kellner I and Smith and in
the combined teachings of Kellner I, Smith and Kellner II with appellant’s countervailing evidence of
and argument for nonobviousness and conclude that the claimed invention encompassed by appealed
claims 1 through 10, 13 and 15 through 17 and of claims 11, 12 and 14 would have been obvious as
a matter of law under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The examiner’s decision is affirmed.
4 See In re Landgraf, 436 F.2d 1046, 1050, 168 USPQ 595, 597 (CCPA 1971).
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