Appeal No. 96-3172
Application No. 08/328,335
Both Japan 30978 and Poppel teach de-inking compositions
comprising a fatty acid and an ethoxylated alcohol surfactant, but
fail in anticipation of the claimed invention in that they do not
use a C -C highly branched oxoalcohol alkoxylated with from about
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2 to less than 6 moles of a C -C alkylene oxide. Wood '933 teaches
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a de-inking composition comprising an alkanol and an alkoxylated
alcohol. The examiner urges that it would have been obvious for one
of ordinary skill in this art to substitute the alkoxylated alcohols
of Wood '933 for the ethoxylated alcohols of the primary references
to arrive at appellants' claimed invention.
We agree with appellants that there is no objective
teaching that would lead one skilled in the art to combine the
relevant teachings of Wood '933 with those of the primary references.
The de-inking compositions of the references are entirely different--
Japan 30978 and Poppel use a fatty acid in combination with an
ethoxylated alcohol surfactant, whereas Wood '933 uses an alkanol in
combination with an alkoxylated alcohol. There is no suggestion to
substitute the particular alkoxylated alcohol of Wood '933 for the
ethoxylated alcohols of the primary references. Even if the
references were combined as suggested by the examiner, appellants'
claimed process would not be obtained. Missing therefrom would be
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