Appeal No. 1997-3811 Page 11
Application No. 08/357,845
would have reasonably conveyed to one having ordinary skill in
the art. In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091
(Fed. Cir. 1991); Merck & Co., Inc. v. Biocraft Laboratories,
Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807, 10 USPQ2d 1843,1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989).
The difficulty we have with the examiner’s position stems
from the fact that the examiner has not offered a reasonable
explanation as to how the combined teachings of either
Pirkle ‘440 or Pirkle ‘293 taken together with the admitted
prior art and with or without Cahnmann would have reasonably
suggested carrying out the separation process by adding a
chiral separator to the first liquid phase (stationary phase)2
and passing a second liquid phase through a countercurrent
chromatographic centrifuge to elute the enantiomers therefrom.
Concerning this matter, we note that the examiner refers to
portions of the applied Pirkle patents that make mention of
using a chiral selector in a mobile phase (answer, page 11,
lines 2-16).
We agree with the examiner that both applied Pirkle
patents particularly refer to the use of a chiral selector in
2 See specification at page 1, lines 9-12 and page 5, lines 7-11, for
example.
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