Appeal No. 97-0113
Application No. 08/083,987
Patent No. 3,131,132), Niebruegge et al. and Latimer.
Technically, claim 1 also remains in the application, although
applicant has withdrawn this claim from the appeal. See the
Appeal Brief, page 2, first paragraph. Accordingly, the appeal
with respect to claim 1 is dismissed. On return of this
application to the Examining Group, both applicant and the
examiner should ensure that claim 1 is canceled from the
application.
On consideration of the record, including applicant's Appeal
Brief (Paper No. 19), the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 20) and
the Reply Brief (Paper No. 21), it is
ORDERED that the examiner's decision rejecting claims
2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 16 on both prior art grounds is reversed.
The Latimer reference, entitled "Vapor-Phase Hydration of
Olefins to Alcohols in Series Reactors With Intermediate Alcohol
Removal," is not within the field of applicant's endeavor. Nor
is this reference reasonably pertinent to the particular problem
with which applicant was involved, namely, the color
contamination of alkanolamines or alkyleneamines. Accordingly,
we find that Latimer is from a non-analogous art. In re Wood,
599 F.2d 1032, 1036, 202 USPQ 171, 174 (CCPA 1979).
Assuming arguendo that Latimer is not from a non-analogous
art, nevertheless, we agree with applicant that both prior art
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