Appeal No. 2005-2465
Application 10/293,373
c) charging said heated oxidized resid to a delayed coker drum at a pressure from about
15 to 50 psig for an effective amount of time to produce volatiles and anisotropic substantially
free-flowing shot coke;
d) removing at least a portion of said volatiles overhead; and
e) removing the product anisotropic substantially free-flowing shot coke from the coker
drum.
The references relied on by the examiner are:
Heck et al. (Heck) 5,258,115 Nov. 2, 1993
British Petroleum Company Limited (British Petroleum)1 844,698 Aug. 17, 1960
(Patent Specification, United Kingdom)
The examiner has rejected appealed claims 1 through 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over British Petroleum taken in view of Heck (answer, pages 3-5).
Appellants argue only appealed claim 1, stating that appealed claims 2 through 9 are
patentable over the prior art for the same reasons (brief, pages 11-12; see answer, page 2). Thus,
we decide this appeal based on appealed claim 1 as representative of the ground of rejection.
37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (September 2004).
We affirm.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the examiner and appellants,
we refer to the answer and to the brief for a complete exposition thereof.
Opinion
We have carefully reviewed the record on this appeal and based thereon find ourselves in
agreement with the supported position advanced by the examiner that, prima facie, the claimed
delayed coking process encompassed by appealed claim 1 would have been obvious over the
combined teachings of British Petroleum and Heck to one of ordinary skill in this art at the time
the claimed invention was made. Thus, we again consider the record as a whole with respect to
this ground of rejection in light of appellants’ rebuttal arguments in the brief and in the
Declaration under 37 CFR § 1.132 of Michael Siskin.2 See generally, In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d
1 British Petroleum was referred to as “GB-844,698” in the answer and ad “GB” in the brief.
2 The Siskin Declaration was filed September 2, 2004, and entered and considered by the
examiner in the action mailed September 21, 2004.
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