7
The appellant argues that their material is washed and dried so that no acid remains
in the filtrate. See Brief, page 8. However, there is no such requirement in the claimed
subject matter. Accordingly, any amount of washing disclosed by Gladrow ‘818, including
the amount found supra, meets the requirement of the claimed subject matter.
The appellant further argues that Example 1 of Gladrow ‘818 discloses a 0.032 wt. %
of acetic acid which would be insufficient to obtain the requisite aluminum salt or result in a
final pH of less than 4. See Supplemental Reply Brief, page 2. We disagree with the
analysis of the example in that the appellant has not determined either the molarity or
normality of the composition which would be indicative of the initial pH. Moreover, the
disclosure of Gladrow ‘818 is not limited to that of Example 1. Indeed, it is well settled
that despite the fact that a patent discloses a multitude of effective combinations, it
does not render any particular formulation less obvious. We find this particularly
true because the claimed subject matter is used for the identical purpose taught by
the prior art, i.e., a fluidizable cracking catalyst. See Merck & Co. Inc. v
Biocraft Laboratories Inc. 874 F.2d 804, 807, 10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed.
Cir.) cert. denied, 493, U.S. 975 (1989). Furthermore, in a section 103 inquiry
the teaching of a preferred specific embodiment is not controlling since the
disclosure of the entire prior art including the non preferred embodiments must be
considered. Id.
The Rejections Over Gladrow ‘309 combined with Gladrow ‘818
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