Appeal No. 1996-4115
Application No. 08/183,273
examiner relies upon a combination of the admitted state of
the prior art and four references to reject the claimed
subject matter. The basic premise of the rejection is whereas
appellant has admitted that both the resin and the adsorbents
are old, and the prior art of record discloses that it is
conventional practice to remove excess epichlorohydrin from a
polyamide-epichlorohydrin copolymer, it would have been
obvious to the person having ordinary skill in the art to
utilize a known adsorbent for the removal of epichlorohydrin
and related hydrolysis compounds. We disagree.
The four references of record are each concerned with the
removal of excess epichlorohydrin from a polyamide-
epichlorohydrin resin. The references to Daniel, Chamberlin
and Baggett each remove excess epichlorohydrin by vacuum
distillation. See Daniel, column 6, lines 71-75, Baggett,
column 2, line 60 through column 3, line 3, and Chamberlin,
column 2, lines 15-18. Chamberlin additionally discloses that
solvent extraction may be used for the removal of impurities.
See column 2, lines 67-68. However, none of Daniel,
Chamberlin or Baggett discloses or suggests that other methods
for the removal of epichlorohydrin are desirable.
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