Appeal No. 2001-2521 Page 8
Application No. 08/738,464
chromatographic column[,] and a titrant . . . with the holding zone or column
functioning to retain a known or metered and injected sample for a time sufficient
to enable quantitative reaction thereof with the titrant.”
The examiner’s characterization of DeFord’s system as a “automated
chromatographic system” that generates “individual column fractions” is also not
accurate. DeFord characterizes the disclosed “method and apparatus [as]
providing continually repeated or sequential on-line chemical analyses.” Column
1, line 6-8. This is accomplished by “utilizing a holding zone or column, e.g., a
chromatographic column[,] and a titrant . . . with the holding zone or column
functioning to retain a known or metered and injected sample for a time sufficient
to enable quantitative reaction thereof with the titrant flowing through said column
continuously except when the injected sample, in effect sharply defined slug, is
flowing into and reacting in said zone, thus creating a titrant ‘vacancy’ in the zone
or column effluent which is detected and can be recorded.”
The examiner’s characterization of DeFord as teaching a chromatographic
method was the basis on which he asserted it would have been obvious to
combine DeFord and Myerholtz. Since, as we have discussed, DeFord does not
teach a chromatographic method, we cannot agree with the examiner that it
would have been obvious to combine DeFord and Myerholtz in order to “sav[e]
the user the labor of adding individual column fractions to the piezoelectric
detector.” The rejections based on Myerholtz and DeFord is reversed.
The examiner also rejected claim 1 as obvious over Myerholtz and Ligler.
He characterized Ligler as teaching a chromatographic system comprising, inter
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