Appeal 2007-2739
Application 11/106,321
the known options within his or her technical grasp. If this
leads to the anticipated success, it is likely the product not of
innovation but of ordinary skill and common sense.
KSR Int'l v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1742 (2007).
We agree with the Examiner that claim 1 would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in view of the teachings of Pepe and Berger. In Pepe,
“a silylorganocarbamate . . . is heated at a temperature sufficient for
dissociation of the carbamate at subatmospheric pressure in the presence of a
cracking catalyst and a weak base trimerization catalyst to produce the
silylisocyanurate” (Pepe, col. 3, ll. 43-48). Pepe teaches that when the
cracking step is performed “[i]n the presence of a trimerization catalyst, the
silylorganoisocyanate is believed to trimerize in-situ to form the
silylisocyanurate” (id. at col. 3, ll. 55-58). Pepe discloses that suitable
trimerization catalysts include “calcium acetate [and] potassium acetate” as
well as “alkali metal salts of organic acids . . . includ[ing] the sodium,
potassium, lithium, and cesium salts of glacial acetic acid, propionic acid,”
and other carboxylic acids (id. at col. 8, l. 66, through col. 9, l. 19).
Thus, Pepe teaches a process in which the starting material recited in
claim 1 is subjected to the claimed cracking step, in the presence of alkali
metal and alkaline earth metal carboxylate catalysts, to produce the claimed
final product. Pepe differs from claim 1 in that Pepe teaches that the
reaction mixture should contain the metal alkoxide and tin-containing
cracking catalysts that claim 1 explicitly excludes from the process.
However, Berger discloses that “[t]he conversion of . . .
silylorganocarbamate to the corresponding isocyanate can be readily
achieved . . . by heating it to reflux under reduced pressure” (Berger, col. 4,
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