Appeal No. 1998-2224
Application No. 08/624,147
Appellants do not contest the examiner’s analysis of the
scope of the claims in application no. 08/419,317 but argue
that Dexheimer “fails to motivate one of ordinary skill in the
art to utilize the cooling and heating steps of the claimed
invention” (Brief, page 20). Appellants also request the
examiner to hold the rejection in abeyance until such time as
the copending application is placed in allowance (id.).
Appellants’ arguments are not persuasive. Heating and
cooling in a moving reaction mass transfer zone by indirect
heat exchange was well known to those of ordinary skill in the
art, as evidenced by the examiner’s previous citation of
Tsuchiyama. Specific high temperature heat exchange fluids7
with high thermal stability were also known in the art as
shown by the examiner’s reliance on Dexheimer (col. 1, ll. 10-
15; ll. 28-32; col. 3, ll. 20-30). Accordingly, we agree with
the examiner’s position that it would have been well within
the ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellants’
invention to control the temperature of the moving reaction
7Tsuchiyama’s use of a water coolant meets the limitation
recited in claim 1 on appeal that the heat exchange fluid be
“capable of phase change at temperatures maintained in each
reactor” (see the specification, page 28, ll. 12-13).
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