Appeal No. 2000-0012
Application No. 09/024,413
product and consumes the sodium nitrate. The metal is recovered
from the leach product by electrolysis.
Appealed claims 1-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over SU '761 in view of Abell, Keyes,
Stetefeldt, Mackay, Carnahan and Kintaichi.
Appellant submits at page 4 of the Brief that "[c]laims 1,
4, and 5 stand or fall together." Also, appellant groups the
remaining appealed claims as follows: (a) claim 2; (b) claim 3;
(c) claims 6, 7 and 9; and (d) claim 8.
Upon thorough review of the positions espoused by appellant
and the examiner, we find ourselves in complete agreement with
the examiner that the subject matter of appealed claims 1-5 would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art within the
meaning of § 103 in view of the applied prior art. Accordingly,
in sustaining the examiner's rejection of claims 1-5, we will
adopt the examiner's reasoning as set forth in the Answer.
SU '761 discloses a method, like appellant's, for removing
copper from ore without adding gaseous oxygen which comprises the
claimed steps of crushing the ore to less than 6 mm, treating the
ore with concentrated sulphuric acid, stacking the ore in a heap,
and then leaching the heap. SU '761 does not disclose the
leaching composition. However, based on the prior art cited by
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