Appeal No. 95-4721
Application No. 08/128,332
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
within the meaning of § 103 in view of the applied prior art.
Accordingly, we will sustain the examiner's rejection.
We have little doubt that one of ordinary skill in the
art, armed with the disclosure of Dix, would have found
appellants' claimed process prima facie obvious. As explained
by the examiner, Dix evidences that it was known in the art to
perform an amination process on aryl halides by reacting a
secondary amine with an aryl halide in the presence of N-
methylpyrrolidone as a solvent, which solvent is within the
scope of appealed claim 11 and specifically recited in
dependent claim 7. Dix teaches that N-methylpyrrolidone is a
preferred solvent (column 1,
line 62). Dix also teaches that bromine is a preferred
halogen substituent on the aryl group (column 2, line 12). In
addition, the reference teaches that a preferred temperature
range for the reaction is 100 to about 280EC (column 2, line
27), which range totally embraces, and is almost congruent
with, the claimed range of 100E to 220EC. Like appellants'
process, the process disclosed by Dix provides an improved
yield of aryl amine when the aryl halide is directly aminated
-4-
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