Appeal No. 1998-1175
Application No. 08/374,462
Jansen et al. (Jansen), “Dehydration of Alcohols by Vapor
Permeation,” from “Proceedings of International Conference on
Pervaporation Processes Chem. Ind.” 1988.
Claims 1, 2, 6-18 and 21-23 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Quinn ‘114 in view of Van
Wijk, Jansen and Quinn ‘456, and claims 3-5, 19 and 20 stand
correspondingly rejected over these references and further in
view of Quinn ‘298.
These rejections cannot be sustained.
As acknowledged by the examiner, the here claimed process
distinguishes over the process of Quinn ‘114 in that patentee
does not teach using a water soluble polymer in combination
with a salt as his active separating layer. That is, while
the active separating layer of Quinn ‘114 includes a salt of
the type here claimed in combination with a polymer, this
polymer is not a water soluble polymer as required by the
claims on appeal.
To account for this deficiency, the examiner relies upon
the teachings of Jansen and Van Wijk to support his conclusion
that these teachings would have suggested using a water
soluble polymer as the polymer in the active separating layer
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