Appeal No. 1996-3847 Page 10
Application No. 08/162,063
to sulphuric acid and other mineral acids for pH adjustment to levels below 4. A person of ordinary
skill in the art, armed with Aoyagi’s disclosure, would have expected to be successful using citric acid
instead of mineral acid to adjust the pH and would have made the substitution based on cost and
convenience.
In regard to the process of claims 12 and 13, we find no substantive arguments in the argument
section of the Brief concerning the subject matter of these claims. To the extent that claims 12 and 13
have been separately argued, the Examiner has persuaded us that the process steps are obvious.
We conclude that the Examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness with respect
to the subject matter of claims 1-9 and 11-19 which has not been sufficiently rebutted by Appellants.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-9 and 11-19 under 35 U.S.C. §
103 over Overton in combination with Chung and Overton in combination with Chung and Aoyagi is
affirmed but the decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1-8, 10, 14-16 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. §
103 over Smith in combination with Erilli and Smith in combination with Erilli and Gosselink is reversed.
Therefore, the decision is affirmed-in-part.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007