Appeal No. 1996-3808 Page 6
Application No. 08/213,832
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“dropped by from 5 to 20 C in said zone,” Metzger discloses in
the Examples, column 4, lines 24 - 31, that,
“{I]n each case, one of the gas streams was fed to
the entrance of the reactor, and the other was passed into
the reactor at a second feed point, about one third of the
way along the total reactor length, after the reaction in
the first reactor section had reached a maximum
temperature and the temperature of the mixture had begun
to decrease again.” 3
We find that Metzger recognized that the additional gas stream
containing initiator was added to a second zone only following
a decrease in the temperature of the first zone. We further
conclude that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to have added further initiator after the
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temperature had dropped from 5 to 20 C because that
temperature range reflects one in which the temperature of the
mixture has “begun to decrease.” See column 4, line 31. Based
upon the above considerations, we conclude that the examiner
has established a prima facie case of obviousness against the
claimed subject matter before us.
As a rebuttal to the prima facie case of obviousness,
appellants rely on the comparative examples in the Table on
3Emphasis ours.
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