Appeal No. 2002-2217
Application 09/549,016
The appellants argue that Cox does not teach that the resin
disclosed therein can be used to break crude oil emulsions
(brief, page 8). This argument is not persuasive because the
appellants’ claim 1 does not require that the resin is capable of
breaking crude oil emulsions.
The appellants argue that one of ordinary skill in the art
would not replace amino substituents on Cox’s substituted aniline
with alkyl substituents (brief, pages 8-9). This argument is not
well taken because Cox discloses not only amino-substituted
anilines, but also alkyl-substituted anilines (col. 3, lines 59-
60 and 65-67; col. 19, lines 39-55).
The appellants argue that Cox does not disclose a
homogeneous resin obtainable from a compound having formula 1 of
the appellants’ claim 1 (brief, page 10). We are not persuaded
by this argument because that claim does not exclude reacting the
compound of formula 1 with an additional compound other than
components A and B.
The appellants argue that 1) Cox discloses a phenol-
containing composition, 2) the objective of the appellants’
invention is to eliminate phenols, and 3) there is no OH group in
formula 1 of the appellants’ claim 1 (brief, pages 5 and 9; reply
brief, page 3). The appellants’ claim 1, however, merely
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007