Appeal No. 1996-3423
Serial No. 08/314,471
The rejection is over Senn in view of Singleton.
Singleton, according to the examiner, "discloses that
boron compounds may be used to passivate zeolite-
containing catalytic cracking catalysts" (examiner's
answer, p. 4). Based on this, the examiner concludes:
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
have modified the cracking process of Senn by
incorporating a boron compound into the catalyst as
suggested by Singleton because boron, antimony, and
zirconium compounds are known to passivate cracking
catalysts and a person of ordinary skill in the art
would expect a mixture of compounds to passivate a
catalyst in an additive or cumulative manner.
Examiner's answer, p. 5. We note that increasing the
combined yield of gasoline and light cycle oil is not
mentioned in the body of the rejection. As we have
discussed, this is a limitation in the claim. As such, a
prima facie case of obviousness must explain why it would
have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art
looking at Senn and Singleton to employ the boron,
zirconium and antimony passivating agents in a manner
which would increase the combined yield of gasoline and
light cycle oil. We do note however that examiner does
address this issue in the rebuttal to appellants'
arguments in the brief.
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