Appeal No. 96-2354
Application No. 08/147,086
certainly requires that the containers fit through an opening
in the passage, the problems set out above with regard to the
other two references are not solved by Koike. Nor are they by
King, which is cited for its disclosure of spacers between the
walls of the reactor vessel and the catalyst containers.
In addition, from our perspective, the examiner failed to
point out where the limitations regarding the arcuate shape of
the inner and outer walls and the selective use of screens and
imperforate material in these walls are taught by the
references, or where the suggestion for modifying the Anderson
apparatus to add these features is found, even in response to
the appellant’s arguments raising these points.
It is our conclusion that the teachings of the applied
references fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness
with regard to the subject matter of claim 15. We thus will
not sustain the rejection of independent claim 15 or claims
16-20, which depend therefrom.3
3The preamble to claim 15 recites “a vertical type radial
flow reactor,” and the final two lines of this claim that a
plurality of containers are assembled “to form a cylindrical
catalyst bed” in the reactor. However, there is no proper
antecedent basis for “said cylindrical reactor,” which appears
in lines 18 and 22. This situation is worthy of correction.
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