Appeal No. 2001-2491 Page 3
Application No. 09/168,564
Perego in view of Wittenbrink. We affirm substantially for the reasons presented by the Examiner
and add the following mainly for emphasis.
OPINION
Appellants state that the claims stand or fall separately for each of the rejections
(Brief at 3). To the extent that the claims are argued separately in accordance with 37 CFR
§ 1.192(c)(8)(2000), we consider them separately.
Obviousness-type Double Patenting
We start our discussion with claim 1, the only independent claim. Claim 1 is directed to a
process for hydroisomerizing long chain n-paraffins using a catalyst comprising a mixture of
metals deposited on a carrier. All of the references applied by the Examiner are also directed to
hydroisomerization of n-paraffins using catalysts containing a metal or a mixture of metals on a
carrier (Perego at claims 1-3; Wittenbrink at col. 1, l. 64 to col. 2, l. 1 and col. 2, ll. 62-63; Achia
at 3, ll. 54-56). The carrier described in claim 1 of Perego meets all the requirements of the
carrier recited in appealed claim 1. Furthermore, each of the references describes the same group
of metals, i.e. what we will call the Group VIII metals,1 for use on the catalyst carrier to catalyze
1While Perego refers to the metals as Group VIIIA metals, it is evident from the
exemplified listing of metals in each reference that the same family of metals is being described.
Note that this group of metals is referred to as Group VIIIA metals under the old IUPAC system
but as Group VIII metals under the CAS system. See the attached Periodic Table of the Elements
available at http://klbproductions.com/yogi/periodic/ and the key provided on page 2 therewith.
We will use the CAS system to identify the Groups.
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