Appeal No. 2001-0098 5
Application No. 08/875,424
JP 57-21591 and Walsh.2
OPINION
We have carefully considered all of the arguments advanced by the appellants and
the examiner, and agree with the appellants that the rejections of the claims are not well
founded. Accordingly, we reverse both rejections. We furthermore remand the case to
the examiner for consideration of a proposed rejection.
The Rejection Under Section 103(a)
"[T]he examiner bears the initial burden, on review of the prior art or on any
other ground, of presenting a prima facie case of unpatentability." See In re Oetiker, 977
F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
WO 94/20674 is directed to a method for the delignification of a chemical paper
pulp. See page 2. We find that a specific sequence of steps is utilized by WO 94/20674
and is characterized by the successive steps OQPD wherein “O denotes an oxygen
treatment step, Q denotes a step of decontamination of the pulp of its metal ions, P
denotes an alkaline hydrogen peroxide treatment step, and D denotes a peroxy acid
treatment step.” See page 3. We find that a discussion on pages 4 and 5 is directed to
variants in step Q. We find that step Q can consist of a treatment with an acid which is free
2All reference to JP 57-21591 are to the English language translation of this document submitted by
appellants.
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