Appeal No. 98-0552
Application 08/357,567
of obviousness. Accordingly, we shall reverse each of the
rejections applied by the examiner.
Initially, we note that the teachings of Hettick are
crucial to each of the rejections before us. Accordingly, we
will focus our remarks upon that reference. None of the other
prior art references which have been applied in conjunction
with Hettick remedies the shortcomings of the Hettick
disclosure.
With regard to Hettick, the examiner relies upon general
statements in Hettick suggesting optimization of the
quantities of oil added at each injection point in order to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness. However, we
agree with appellant that the examiner has given insufficient
weight to Hettick’s explicit teachings (col. 2, lines 3-10)
regarding the proportion of the total feed added to the riser
at the lowest or first injection position. To wit, Hettick
states:
Thus, the entire body of
catalyst, according to the
invention, first contacts only a
small part of the total feed
which results in a high catalyst
to feed or oil ratio . . . there
will be a high ratio of steam to
catalyst, as well as a high ratio
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007