Appeal No. 1998-2224
Application No. 08/624,147
art, or the nature of the problem to be solved). The examiner
has not convincingly identified why one of ordinary skill in
the art would have been motivated to use the PSA separation of
Keefer in the process of Tsuchiyama. There is no evidence or
convincing reasons why the recovery of non-reacted gases would
have been desired or why this separation would have been “more
economically efficient.”
For the foregoing reasons and those set forth in the
Brief, we determine that the examiner has not presented a
prima facie case of obviousness in view of the reference
evidence. Accordingly, the rejection of claims 1-7 under
section 103 over Tsuchiyama taken with Keefer is reversed.
The rejection of claims 8-27 under section 103 employs
the same references as discussed above further in view of
Dandekar, JP ‘436, and Dexheimer (Answer, page 4). The
secondary references to Dandekar, JP ‘436 and Dexheimer have
been applied to show various features of dependent claims and
thus do not remedy the deficiencies noted above in Tsuchiyama
and Keefer (Answer, pages 4-5). Furthermore, the Official
Notice taken by the examiner with respect to the disclosure of
JP ‘436 (that Ag salts are functional equivalents to copper
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