Appeal No. 1999-0140
Application No. 08/622,953
position in the paragraph bridging pages 6 and 7 of the answer
as follows:
It is not the examiner[’]s position that the properties
of the claims are identically disclosed in Hasman.
Rather it is the examiner’s position that the
hydrogenation process of Hasman on the oil of Fick would
have been obvious to one of skill in the fat art. The
properties of the fats of the claims would naturally
result from the process of Hasman on the fat of Fick.
We cannot agree for a number of reasons.
In the first place, we agree with the appellants that
their claimed process differs from the process of Hasman. For
example, Hasman does not employ a deadened catalyst as
expressly required by process claim 27 on appeal. With
respect to this issue, the examiner points out that Hasman
refers to a sulfur poisoned nickel catalyst (i.e., a deadened
catalyst) at lines 15-18 in column 1. This disclosure,
however, relates to a prior art technique for elaidinizing
glyceride oil and is completely unrelated to patentee’s two-
step hydrogenation process which clearly employs active
catalysts.2
2For purposes of clarification, we emphasize that the
examiner does not contend that it would have been obvious to
use a deadened catalyst in the process of Hasman, and indeed
no basis exists for such a contention in the absence of
7
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