Appeal No. 1996-4171
Application 07/762,298
from an acidic waste stream to sub-ppm levels, appellant
emphatically asserts that Eccles provides no reasonable
expectation of success for the removal of heavy metal ions to
levels of below 1 ppm from waste streams containing diverse
complexing agents. See the brief at page 7, last paragraph.
In an apparent response to these arguments, the examiner
asserts that because Eccles “clearly teaches removing ‘small
quantities, in the parts per million range’ of heavy metals
from a waste liquor”, Eccles’s process “is capable of
achieving the recited degree of purification”. See the answer
at page 5. However, the examiner makes no reference to any
other specific objective evidence or persuasive reasoning in
support of this conclusion regarding the removal capability of
the Eccles prior art process. Moreover, the examiner has
ignored appellant’s specific arguments that the Eccles Figure
2 data demonstrates that the process is not viable for
removing heavy metals from a waste stream to sub-ppm levels as
claimed herein. To establish a prima facie case of
obviousness, it is well settled that “[b]oth the suggestion
and the expectation of success must be founded in the prior
art[emphasis added].” In re Dow Chemical Co., 837 F.2d 469,
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007