Appeal No. 1997-1793
Application No. 08/528,044
dioxide-mixed oxides, which are described as being suitable in
the production of thermal insulation materials, to make the
Fe O -TiO binary oxide 2-butanol decomposition catalysts of
23 2
Hattori so as to arrive at the appellants’ claimed subject
matter. Additionally, we disagree with the examiner’s
conclusion (answer, page 8) that the teachings of the applied
prior art references provide the requisite reasonable
expectation of success in modifying Hattori as proposed by the
examiner. In this regard, we note that the chemical and
physical properties of Kleinschmit’s product, which is
suitable for making thermal insulation materials, are
completely different from those of Hattori’s 2-butanol
decomposition catalyst. Unlike Hattori’s catalyst,
Kleinschmit’s materials must necessarily contain a major
amount of silicon dioxide in combination with minor amounts of
zirconium dioxide, iron oxide, or titanium dioxide. Under
these circumstances, it cannot be said that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of
success in using Kleinschmit’s
pyrogenic process, which is specifically limited to particular
silicon dioxide mixed oxides useful for preparing thermal
insulation materials, in the production of the specific 2-
butanol decomposition catalysts (e.g., Fe O -TiO ) described in
2 3 2
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007