Appeal No. 98-0552
Application 08/357,567
of steam to oil existing at this
initial contact. [underlining
added for emphasis]
Also, we note that the only split-feed embodiment exemplified
in Hettick is a process where the total feed is divided into
six equal streams so that the amount of oil added at the first
injection point is only about 17 volume percent of the total
feed.
In our view, Hettick’s explicit teachings regarding the
proportion of oil initially injected into the riser serve to
qualify the general statements of Hettick concerning
optimization. In other words, we agree with appellant that
the Hettick disclosure, taken as a whole, would lead an
ordinary artisan to conclude that optimization of the split-
feed FCC process requires delivery of a portion of the total
feed to the first or lowest injection point (the “initial
contact” point) in an amount well below any of the ranges
recited in the claims on appeal, and certainly not as much as
half or more of the total.
While appellant also argues that examples in his
specification demonstrate unexpected results, we find it
unnecessary to consider the issue inasmuch as we have
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