Appeal No. 2002-2203 Page 3
Application No. 09/584,526
Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Bruce in view of Calcar and Maus.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and
the appellants regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the answer
(Paper No. 13) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections and to
the brief and reply brief (Paper Nos. 12 and 15) for the appellants’ arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
We turn first to the rejection of claim 1 as being unpatentable over Bruce in view
of Dower. Bruce teaches that proper control of offshore wells requires that the riser
base pressure (the hydrostatic pressure exerted on the subsurface formation) be kept
at a sufficient level to overcome formation pressure without exceeding the natural
fracture gradient of the formation (column 1, lines 32-41). With this in mind, Bruce
discloses a method of pressure control comprising monitoring the riser base pressure
and adjusting the rate of lift gas injection into the riser to control the density of the fluid
in the riser to thereby adjust the riser base pressure. Bruce does not disclose using a
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