Appeal No. 1995-2659
Application 07/896,705
fail to see how this alone renders the inventions
distinct and independent from each other. It may be that
the patented claims are a subcombination of the
application claims, but that sort of analysis has not
been made. Simply because process claims include a step
not otherwise mentioned in
other process claims does not make them independent and
distinct. According to that logic, dependent claims would
normally be restrictable.
Finally, with respect to the different starting
materials, the apparent difference is that the
application claims (see representative claim 32, supra)
involve fat, which is hydrolyzed to a fatty acid and then
oxidized, while the patented claims are directed to the
fatty acid only. However, upon closer reading, especially
considering patented dependent claim 5, the patent claims
appear to be generic in scope. According to patented
claim
5, “some of the fatty acid … is in the form of a fat”.
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