Appeal No. 2003-0870 Page 2
Application No. 09/046,740
The references set forth below are relied upon by the examiner as evidence of
obviousness:
Schulenburg 1,977,210 Oct. 16, 1934
Gajewski 2,337,882 Dec. 28, 1943
Cooper et al. (Cooper) 2,353,997 Jul. 18, 1944
Krulik et al. (Krulik) 3,501,524 Mar. 17, 1970
All of the appealed claims stand rejected under the first paragraph of 35 USC
§ 112, as containing subject matter which was not described in the specification in such
a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventors, at the
time the application was filed, had possession of the now claimed invention. It is the
examiner’s position that “[a]ppellants are claiming a temperature range of at least 56°C
and no more than 80°C for said slurry to achieve for the process, see claims 7 and 9,
step (d)” and that “there is absolutely nothing in the instant specification that would
suggest a temperature of at least 56°C and no more than 80°C” (Answer, page 3).
The appealed claims also stand rejected under 35 USC § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combined teachings of Schulenburg, Gajewski, Krulik and
optionally in view of Cooper. According to the examiner, “[i]t would have been prima
facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
modify Schulenburg process to include temperature range of 20-70°C as taught in the
analogous process of Gajewski, or alternatively adjust the alkaline pH as taught by
Krulik, or optionally add calcium cyanamide in installment as taught by Cooper et al,
with the reasonable expectation of achieving a high yield of thiourea, because the
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