Appeal No. 96-0112
Application 07/877,913
Additionally, at page 18, lines 35 through 39 of appellants' disclosure, it is recited that the steam
injectors utilized in claims 8, 16, 17, 19 and 20 are "commonly used in refineries and extensively
discussed in Perry's Engineer's Handbook, Sixth Edition, Sections 6-31 to 6-35 of which are
incorporated by reference."
Thus, from all the above, it could be considered that all the facets of appellants' claimed
invention are either result effective variables whose optimization would have been within the skill of the
routineer in the art, or are well-known expedients in the refining art and are being used for their art-
accepted purpose to achieve an expected result-optimization of a particular product or yield. Thus, a
question of obviousness under 35 USC 103 may be engendered when the above-noted prior art is
considered together. It is also possible that only through appellants' manipulation of variables and
application of the totality of these well known expedients that the claimed invention was achieved. On
this record, as now developed, we shall not conjecture on this issue but find the better course of action
is to leave the resolution of these issues to the appellants and the examiner upon return of this
application to the examining group.
13
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007