Appeal No. 2001-1693 Page 3
Application No. 09/168,099
(Great Britain) 1,054,864 Jan. 11, 1967
Kaibel, "Distillation Columns with Vertical Partitions," Chemical Eng. Technol., Vol. 10,
pp. 92-98 (1987)
Claims 2-5, 7-9, 11, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Reusser combined with Turner in view of Kelly alone or alternatively
further in view of Kaibel; Claims 5 and 12 are additionally correspondingly rejected over
these references and further in view of Hepworth, Alagy, or Ambler; and finally claim 10
is correspondingly rejected over the references applied against independent claim 2
and further in view of Jung.1
We refer to the Brief and Reply Brief and to the Answer for a complete
exposition of the opposing viewpoints expressed by the appellants and by the examiner
concerning the above noted rejections.
Opinion
For the reasons which follow, each of these rejections will be sustained.
A review of the file records for this application and its parent reveals that the
examiner has relied on the Turner reference for its teaching of the catalyst features
recited in dependent claims 8 and 9 and has relied on the Kaibel reference for its
teaching of the dividing wall distillation column feature recited in dependent claim 3. It
follows that in assessing the § 103 rejection of independent claim 2 we need consider
only the Reusser and Kelly references.
1 In light of the appellants' comments regarding the grouping of the appealed
claims on pages 4 and 5 of the brief, our assessment of the respective rejections before
us on this appeal will include consideration of individual claims to the extent that they
have been separately argued by the appellants. See 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(8)(2000).
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