Appeal No. 2001-2151
Application No. 09/035,174
(iii) azeotropically removing water present in said
first and second streams
and
(d) removing the unreacted ethylene and propylene
product from said distillation column reactor as
overheads product[.]
The following references are relied upon by the examiner as
representative of the prior art:
Chauvin et al. (Chauvin) 4,795,734 Jan. 3, 1989
Slaugh 5,030,784 Jul. 9, 1991
Palmer et al. (Palmer) 5,235,102 Aug. 10, 1993
The following rejections are before us for consideration:
I. Claims 1-7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, for indefiniteness.
II. Claims 1-7 also stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for
obviousness over either Slaugh or Chauvin, each taken in view of
Palmer.
Based on the record before us, we are compelled to reverse
each of the rejections at issue for the following reasons.
With regard to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, the
examiner opines that there is no antecedent basis in the claim
for “azeotropically removing water present in said first and
second streams” because, according to the examiner, appellant
does not affirmatively claim the presence of water in any of the
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