Appeal No. 2002-0454
Application No. 09/083,122
In response, appellants argue that the claimed process “requires the refluxing of
the alcohol treated extract with KOH to obtain a precipitate of potassium hydroxycitric
acid and that the Lewis process contains no such requirement.” Brief, page 9.
Applicant contends that there is “no motivation to modify the Lewis process in a manner
to duplicate the claimed process.” Id. Appellants further argue that the “burden is on
the examiner to prove that the element of the reflux is contained within the Lewis
process. Applicants submit that this has not been done as no evidence has been
presented which proves that an exothermic reaction is the equivalent of the refluxing
temperature.” Brief, pages 9-10.
We agree with the appellants that the examiner has failed to provide sufficient
evidence to support a prima facie case of obviousness, in failing to provide evidence of
a refluxing step, or evidence that an exothermic reaction is the equivalent of a refluxing
temperature. Appellants argue that the term “reflux” is a term of art which has required
a specific meaning in the art. Brief, page 10.2 We agree.
Therefore, we reverse the rejection of the examiner as the examiner has failed to
provide sufficient evidence of the refluxing step in the method of claim 1. While
appellants put forth several additional arguments supporting patentability of the present
2 The Brief, page 10, provides a definition of the term “reflux”. The term is
defined as, “used in distillation with a fractionating column for the liquid condensed from
the rising vapor and allowed to flow down the column toward the still.” The Condensed
Chemical Dictionary, Seventh Ed., p. 812. In addition, Grant and Hackh’s Chemical
Dictionary defines the term reflux to mean, “A vertical or inclined condenser, from which
the condensed liquid flows back into the distilling vessel.”
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