Appeal No. 1996-3367 Page 11
Application No. 08/480,554
not been substantiated with any objective evidence. Moreover,
even if a skilled artisan would have understood Böttger to
have used a ratio of 0.28 moles of sodium chloride to iron
chloride in Example 2 thereof, we note that such a teaching
coupled with the disclosure of good results in purity
obtention being obtainable with small concentrations of sodium
chloride (page 7, paragraph 3 of Böttger) would have rendered
the claimed ratio prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art. Thus, we shall sustain the examiner's § 103
rejection of claim 2.
Rejection of Claim 6
We are not convinced by appellants' suggestion that the
pressure (0.4 to 0.6 bar gauge) of the reaction process
recited in claim 6 would have been unobvious over the applied
prior art for reasons set forth by the examiner (answer, page
4). We observe that Böttger discloses that the use of "normal
and excess pressure" (page 2) was generally known in the art
and discloses a specific over pressure of 1.3 bar (page 5) and
0.8 bar (Example 2). Certainly, a skilled artisan would have
been imbued with both a suggestion and a reasonable
expectation of success in carrying out the chlorination
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