Appeal No. 2003-0804
Application No. 09/196,266
invention. It is well settled that claim language is not to be
read in a vacuum but in light of the specification as it would be
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Sneed,
710 F.2d 1544, 1548, 218 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1983). The
paragraph bridging pages 11 and 12 of the answer seems to ignore
the controlling law.
We now turn to the examiner’s § 103 rejections. We concur
with appellant that Ridland fails to teach or suggest the claimed
requirement that the feed to the first vessel comprises water,
in addition to organic acid and alcohol. The examiner’s reliance
on Ridland, at page 3, lines 29-30, is misplaced since, as
emphasized by appellant, the cited portion of Ridland teaches
adding water during the preparation of the catalyst, and not
adding water to the feed.
Also, Ridland provides no teaching or suggestion of
maintaining the components of the first liquid effluent in
substantial reaction equilibrium, maintaining the second vessel
at vapor-liquid equilibrium but not at reaction equilibrium, and
having either the temperature, pressure, or residence time in the
first vessel be greater than that in the second vessel. The
examiner appreciates that Ridland does not teach this set of
operating parameters but reasons that “if the skillful artisan in
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