Appeal No. 2002-0404
Application No. 08/859,143
Claims 1 through 17 on appeal stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Dougherty in view of
Erpenbach. (Examiner’s answer of May 4, 2001, paper 21, pages
3-5.) Also, claims 11 through 17 on appeal stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Erpenbach. (Id. at page
5.) Further, claims 11 through 17 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Aldrich.1 (Id.)
We reverse each of the aforementioned rejections.
Claims 1-17: Dougherty and Erpenbach
Dougherty describes a process for producing butyl acrylate
from butanol and acrylic acid comprising: reacting butanol and
acrylic acid in the presence of an esterification catalyst in
reactor 10; removing the butyl acrylate reaction product from
the reactor through line 15 and introducing the butyl acrylate
reaction product into a finishing distillation tower 24;
removing the bottom reactor residue containing polymer, butyl
acrylate, butanol, and water from reactor 10 through line 14 and
introducing the residue to a heat treater 16 to recover reaction
products, which are then returned to reactor 10 via line 17;
removing a slip stream from the heat treater 16 through line 18
to a heavy ends removal unit 19, where the residue is “sourced”
1 Appellants do not contest that Aldrich is available as prior art.
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