Appeal No. 1996-0270
Application 08/118,128
ordinary skill in the art who was aware that Fenton systems
are effective for decontaminating soil in a slurry and was
aware of Sun’s teaching regarding the mechanism of his method,
as discussed above, would have considered Sun’s method to be
ineffective for decontaminating soil in a slurry.
Appellant argues that Sun states (page 326, col. 2,
lines 10-11) that nitrilotriacetic acid and hydroxyethylimino-
diacetic acid were relatively unstable, and that this teaching
points away from using these compounds (brief, pages 7-8;
reply brief, pages 7-8). Sun not only teaches that these
compounds were relatively unstable, but also teaches that they
were relatively active (page 326). When determining whether
to use these compounds, one of ordinary skill in the art would
have balanced the greater activity against the relative
instability.
Appellant argues that chelates made using picolinic acid
and rhodizonic acid were among the chelates found by Sun to
have high activity in water, but that appellant has found that
these chelates leave no more than 2% iron in solution after
addition to soil suspensions (brief, page 7). Appellant’s
specification (page 23, lines 9-11) shows that
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