Appeal No. 94-2410
Application 08/011,573
the disclosures of the applied prior art references. See In re
Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993);
In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed.
Cir. 1992). The examiner admits that none of the references
characterizes the zeolite catalysts in terms of their alpha
values (answer, page 6). However, the examiner states that
appellants are employing “art-known zeolites prepared by art-
known methods” (answer, page 6), citing appellants’ disclosure
that the particular zeolites used in the appealed claims are
prepared by conventional methods and are described in U.S.
Patents 3,308,069 and 3,702,886 (answer, page 6, and the2
specification, page 7).
There is no disclosure or teaching in the applied references
to suggest using a zeolite catalyst having an alpha value less
than 10 in the claimed disproportionation reaction. In fact,
looking at the prior art as a whole, the art teaches away from
using such low alpha value catalysts for disproportionation.
Morrison teaches the use of “high acid activity” and thus high
alpha values but, as argued by the examiner, does not disclose
2It is noted that Argauer et al., U.S. Patent 3,702,886,
only discloses one alpha value catalyst, that being a ZSM-5
catalyst having an alpha value of 680 (see Table 12 in column
12).
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