Appeal No. 2000-0034
Application 08/473,634
ordinary skill in the art to use a confined reactor in
Harada’s method because use of such a reactor ensures
sufficient residence time to complete the reaction (answer,
page 3).
Even if essentially Harada’s entire reactor can be a
confined portion of the reactor, the examiner has not provided
evidence or technical reasoning which shows that the flow
introduced into Harada’s reactor is introduced into
essentially the entire reactor rather than being introduced
into the entire reactor. Moreover, the examiner’s argument
that one of ordinary skill in the art would have used a
confined reactor to provide sufficient residence time for the
reaction is irrelevant because what the appellants’ claim 18
requires is not that a confined reactor is used but, rather,
that the gas is introduced into a confined portion of the
reactor. Because the examiner has not established that
introducing Harada’s flow into a confined portion of the
reactor would have been fairly suggested to one of ordinary
skill in the art by the applied prior art, the examiner has
not carried the burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness of the method recited in that claim.
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007