Appeal No. 2001-2151
Application No. 09/035,174
two feeds. As we construe the claim, according to the plain
meaning of its terms, there is no need for any antecedent basis
for water being present in the two recited feed streams since an
affirmative recitation of that feature is included in the
azeotropic removal step itself. In other words, the claim
requires, as a mandatory step, that water be azeotropically
removed in the distillation column reactor and that the water to
be removed is “present in said first and second streams.”
For the foregoing reason, the 35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection is
reversed.
Consistent with our holding above, we find that none of the
cited prior art references teach or suggest the azeotropic
removal of water in a metathesis distillation column reactor
which is fed by a first stream of ethylene and a second stream of
2-butene, where each stream contains water. If anything, Chauvin
(col. 3, ll. 15-20) evidences that in the prior art it was
preferable to conduct the metathesis reaction in question in the
absence of moisture by using reactant streams which have been
pre-dried.
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