Appeal No. 94-1863
Application 07/832,154
for the removal of sulfur. In our view, this disclosure clearly
conveys to those skilled in the art that van der Wal contemplates
catalysts containing three, four or more metal oxides.
Appellants urge that van der Wal teaches that iron oxide is a
critical component of his catalyst whereas it need not be present in
the claimed catalyst. This argument is not considered well taken.
The fact that iron oxide is a critical component of van der Wal's
catalyst, but not of appellants', does not show that van der Wal does
not render obvious the claimed subject matter. Appellants' catalyst
may include iron oxide. As we noted above, van der Wal's generic
disclosure includes many of the catalysts embraced by appellants'
genus and there is nothing unobvious in choosing some catalysts from
among the many disclosed in a reference.
Appellants urge that van der Wal teaches that the critical oxide
of appellants' invention (an oxide of an element of the sixth
secondary group, i.e., Cr, Mo and W) is optional in van der Wal's
catalysts. This argument is not considered well taken. This does
not diminish in any way van der Wal's teachings since, as we noted
above, van der Wal's generic disclosure includes many of the
catalysts embraced by appellants' genus and there is nothing
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007