Appeal No. 2001-1932
Application No. 08/829,512
Answer, Paper No. 21, mailed June 9, 1999, page 3. The examiner
further relies on Suto as teaching the claimed catalyst. Id.
The examiner acknowledges that although Suto discloses an
aromatic chloride which includes pyridine chloride and that the
starting material may be substituted on the ring, Suto does not
specifically disclose that the substituent may be phenoxy as
required by the claims. Id. The examiner also notes that Suto
discloses an amide in example 8 which, when substituted by a
phenoxy group, is a known herbicide as disclosed in CA ‘849.
Id., page 4.
According to the examiner, “[i]t would have been obvious to
one ordinarily skilled in the art to have used the process of
Suto to prepare compounds with phenoxy substituent
as in CA ‘849 with the expectation of obtaining a useful
herbicide. Although the Suto example gives a specific pyridine
chloride, its isomers are not excluded since they are obvious
variants.” Examiner’s Answer, page 4, second paragraph.
Appellants maintain that
[w]hile Suto discloses generically the starting organic
(aromatic or heterocyclic) chloride and gives examples
thereof, Suto et al. does not give any examples of
appellants’ starting material. This is important
because catalytic activity is unpredictable, Suto et
al. does not disclose appellants’ starting material,
and, accordingly, the catalytic activity or lack
4
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