Appeal No. 2001-0936
Application No. 08/952,208
discolorations or imperfections could result in the loss of an
entire batch. (Appeal Brief, page 6, lines 25-37).
The appellants further contend that Ritz itself teaches away
from the claimed 0.01% THA-1 in that at column 8, lines 22-29
teaches that some impurities in concentrations of 10 ppm or less
can “make it impossible to adhere to characteristics.”
Additionally, the declaration of Melder (Paper #13, page 5,
first full paragraph) states that purification of 6-
aminocapronitrile in Ritz must have occurred upon its
manufacture, based upon the three cited references in Ritz. The
appellants urge that these three references either state or imply
that the resulting 6-ACN is distilled off (Id., page 4, lines 17-
37) and is therefore “pure” in the sense of free from THA-1. The
appellants have also stated that this is so because in the
appropriate work-up to distill off the 6-CAN, THA-1 would be left
in the residue unless the distillation were continued. (Id.,
page 3, last two paragraphs).
Furthermore, the appellants have asserted that in the art of
manufacturing caprolactam or polycaprolactam for manufacture
into, e.g. nylon 6, it is generally known to use pure materials
to avoid wasting a batch of product. (Appeal Brief, page 6,
second paragraph).
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