Appeal No. 96-2803
Application No. 08/255,542
Speight, James G. (Speight), The Chemistry and Technology of
Petroleum, Second Ed., pps. 529-532 and 545-549, Marcel
Dekker, Inc., copyright 1991.
Appealed claims 21, 22, and 29 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Rehner in view of
Longwell. Claims 26 and 27 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103 as unpatentable over Rehner in view of Longwell and
Speight. Claims 30-33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Rehner in view of Longwell further in view
of “admitted prior art”, Wadlinger, Rubin, or Wise.
We cannot sustain the stated rejections.
The examiner’s conclusion that the claimed process would
have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art
depends on whether there is any suggestion in Rehner of using
an alkylating agent to introduce “an branched chain alkyl
group of three to five carbon atoms” into a polynuclear
aromatic compound to reduce its mutagenicity. For this
purpose, Rehner discloses that the introduction of alkyl
groups having about eight carbon atoms, e.g., through the use
of a diisobutylene alkylating agent, into carcinogenic
polynuclear aromatic compounds successfully reduced the
carcinogenicity of oil feeds containing these compounds. More
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