Appeal No. 95-0277
Application 08/002,563
subsequently canceled by appellants, leaving only claims 6 and 7
for consideration on appeal.
The appealed claims as represented by claim 6 are drawn to the
treatment of a methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) recycle stream
containing, inter alia, 40 to about 60 wt.% of methanol, tertiary
butyl alcohol, MTBE and the peroxides tertiary butyl
hydroperoxide and ditertiary butyl peroxide, by contacting the
same with a silica-supported catalyst as specified in claim 6 at
about 160E to about 180EC in order to catalytically decompose
said peroxides and to form additional MTBE.
The reference relied on by the examiner is:
Sanderson et al. (Sanderson) 4,704,482 Nov. 3,
1987
The examiner has rejected claims 6 and 7 on appeal under 35
U.S.C. ' 103 as being unpatentable over Sanderson. We reverse.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the
examiner and appellants, we refer to the examiner’s answer and to
appellants’ brief for a complete exposition thereof.
Opinion
We have carefully reviewed the record on this appeal and based
thereon conclude that the examiner has not established that one
of ordinary skill in this art would have been motivated by the
teaching of Sanderson to utilize the catalysts disclosed therein
to decompose peroxides in an MTBE recycle stream which contains
MTBE and 40 to about 60 wt.% of methanol at about 160E to about
180EC with the reasonable expectation of forming MTBE in addition
to catalytically decomposing peroxides. Indeed, as a matter of
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