Appeal No. 1998-1567 5
Application No. 08/636,816
loadings. See column 2, lines 54-56. Although Font Freide discloses that in certain
circumstances “higher loadings may be desirable,” and that they, “may be achieved by
wash coating the monolith prior to immersion in the solution,” column 2, lines 54-63,
there is no specific disclosure as to the amount of platinum catalyst that may be deposited
on the ceramic monolith substrate.
We further find that Example 1 discloses a platinum loading of 0.1% by weight,
and Example 3 discloses a loading factor of 0.5% by weight for Pt/Pd. Example 3
however, fails to disclose the amount of either Pt or Pd present in the catalyst and in any
event the catalyst composition does not fall within the scope of the claimed subject matter
of claim 1 which recites, “a platinum catalyst consisting essentially of 2 to 90 wt. %
platinum.” We accordingly conclude that the amount of platinum disclosed by Font
Freide is not within the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Based upon the above findings and analysis, we further determine that there is no
suggestion or motivation to increase the amount of platinum loaded onto a monolithic
ceramic substrate by a factor of almost 15 times in order to achieve the minimum amount
of the catalyst required by the claimed subject matter. In this respect we agree with
appellants’ position that optimization of a result oriented variable is generally within a
range disclosed by the reference of record. See Brief, page 5.
Furthermore, we disagree with the conclusion of the examiner that the references
of Warren and Hazbun may be combined with the primary references of record. We find
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