Appeal No. 2003-0808
Application No. 09/343,334
As to separately argued claims 10 through 12, the
appellants correctly argue that “[n]either Sauer nor Wu teaches
or suggests hydrogenating prior to distilling and
hydrogenating.” (Appeal brief, page 15.) The examiner does not
respond to this argument. We therefore reverse this ground of
rejection as applied against claims 10 through 12.
III. 35 U.S.C. § 103(a): Claims 1-4, 6-12, 26, and 28
over Cupples in View of Wu
Cupples describes a method for preparing a polyalphaolefin
oligomer comprising the step of hydrogenating a liquid oligomer.
(Column 1, lines 11-16.) Specifically, Cupples teaches (column
4, lines 4-27):
In our hydrogenation procedure, liquid oligomer
at an elevated temperature is flowed or trickled over
the surface of particles or pellets of the catalyst
packed into a column in the presence of hydrogen at
elevated pressure. This procedure involves an
exceptionally intimate contact of the total liquid
oligomer with the catalyst for a substantial period of
time, since substantially all of the oligomer is
present as a thin liquid film on the catalyst as the
oligomer passes through the column. In this trickle-
through procedure the great bulk of liquid oligomer is
located on the catalyst surface with hydrogen gas
predominating in the interstitial spaces between the
pellets. Therefore, there is no large bulk of the
liquid oligomer far removed from catalyst surface at
any time during the hydrogenation reaction.
The hydrogenation is preferably carried out at an
elevated temperature of between about 100˚ C. to about
300˚ C. and preferably between about 150˚ C. and about
220˚ C., and a hydrogen pressure between about 200
psi. and about 2,000 psi., or higher, and preferably
between about 300 psi., and about 1,000 psi. These
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