Appeal No. 2001-0936
Application No. 08/952,208
We note that the examiner has not addressed the declaration
evidence in the Examiner’s Answer, or taken a position to refute
the appellants’ contentions regarding the purity of materials
used in manufacture of caprolactam and polycaprolactam in the
Examiner’s Answer. In a previous Action (Paper #17, page 2,
lines 10-14), the examiner did note that the appellants did not
show what factors drove the reaction or whether it was at
equilibrium.
Our review of Ritz indicates that the 6-aminonitrile of
interest is manufactured by hydrogenating adiponitrile. Three
examples are given, a reaction scheme described in DE-A-836 938,
DE-A 848 645, and US 5,151,543. (Ritz, column 2, lines 61-64).
We find that Ritz’s silence on the workup of the produced 6-ACN
does not indicate that it has not been purified. In their
unrefuted declaration, the appellants note that the 6-ACN
distills out of the reaction mix first, to be followed by the
unreacted adiponitrile, then the THA-I. However, in standard
practice the distillation is stopped before recovering the THA-I.
(Paper #13, paragraph bridging pages 3-4).
We therefore agree with the position advanced by the
appellants that, and find that, on balance, the evidence supports
the position that one of ordinary skill in the art would
understand that the material of Ritz is purified by distillation.
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