Appeal No. 97-2098
Application No. 08/401,514
significance to the fact that Tsutsui’s examples utilize only
one type of metallocene.
Having determined that a prima facie case of obviousness
has been established, we must now begin anew our assessment of
the obviousness issue before us taking into account all
evidence of record for and against an obviousness conclusion.
See, for example, In re Rinehart, 531 F.2d 1048, 1052, 189
USPQ 143, 147 (CCPA 1976).
As evidence of nonobviousness, the appellant points to
the examples in his specification which are said to evince
that the here claimed method yields the unexpected result of
inhibited reactor fouling and catalyst agglomeration.
However, even if such results are assumed to be unexpected,
the specification examples referred to by the appellant
plainly are evidentially inadequate to outweigh the reference
evidence adduced by the examiner. This is because the
examples under consideration (i.e., Examples 5 through 8)
involve only a single catalyst system having an activity of
360,000 g/g/hr. In contrast, the independent claim on appeal
is significantly broader in reciting “a supported metallocene
catalyst system having an activity greater than about 100,000
5
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