Appeal No. 94-3287
Application 07/835,152
mentioned process conditions claimed by the appellants. For all
we know based on this reference evidence, these conditions are
both novel and nonobvious.
Moreover, it is our view that the Umemura reference fails to
provide any basis for a reasonable expectation of success with
respect to operating a maleic anhydride process under the
aforementioned conditions. In this regard, it is important to
appreciate that these process conditions tend to create the
autoignition problem addressed by the appellants. Absent a
recognition of this problem, no basis exists for reasonably
expecting that the problem would be successfully avoided via
Umemura’s invention.
Apparently, the examiner believes that the drawback taught
by Umemura of manufacturing maleic anhydride in a carbon steel
reactor “is generic to the auto-ignition problem recited in the
instant claims” (Answer, page 2) and accordingly that “[o]ne of
ordinary skill in the art from reading the reference would know
that coating the entire surface of the reactor where n-butane and
oxygen are in contact at high temperature would lead to the
[appellants’] disclosed advantages” (Supplemental Answer, page
2). However, the examiner has proffered utterly no evidence or
scientific reasoning in support of this belief. As a
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