Appeal No. 2001-1693 Page 4
Application No. 09/168,099
As acknowledged by the appellants on pages 6-8 of the Brief, the Reusser
process corresponds to the process defined in step (a) of the independent claim on
appeal, and the Kelly process corresponds to the process defined by steps (c) and (d)
of this claim. Beyond this acknowledgment, however, we find that Reusser teaches
separating and isolating by suitable means the products of his reaction (e.g., see lines
7-10 in column 6). Moreover, since these products include propylene (aka, propene)
(e.g., see lines 3-8 in column 3; lines 6-9 in column 4; and reactions (c) and (d) in Table
I), we conclude that the Reusser patent would have suggested the separation of
propene from patentee's product mixture as required by step (b) of appealed claim 2.
Although Reusser fails to disclose steps (c) and (d) of the claim under review, his
non-propene reaction products (e.g., again see reactions (c) and (d) of Table I) include
the 2-pentene and 2-methyl-2-butene products claimed by the appellants and utilized
as starting materials for reaction with ethylene in the corresponding metathesis process
of Kelly to thereby produce desirable products including propylene (aka, propene),
isobutene and 1-butene (e.g., see claims 1, 2, and 5, the paragraph bridging the third
and fourth pages as well as lines 3-4 on the fourth page of Kelly). These circumstances
lead us to conclude that an artisan with ordinary skill would have combined the
processes of Reusser and Kelly so as to thereby use the non-propene reaction
products of Reusser in the Kelly process in order to produce propene, isobutene, and
1-butene. Further, after recovery of propene from these last mentioned products (e.g.,
again see lines 3-4 on the fourth page of Kelly), it would have been obvious for the
artisan to recycle the isobutene and 1-butene products to the beginning of Reusser's
process since Reusser teaches using isobutene and 1-butene as starting materials in
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