Appeal No. 2003-2012
Application No. 09/981,454
All of the appealed claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sennewald ‘623 and Sennewald
‘624 optionally in view of Calcagno.1
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advocated by
the appellants and by the examiner regarding the above noted
rejections, we refer to the brief and to the anser for a complete
exposition thereof.
OPINION
For the reasons set forth in the answer and below, we will
sustain each of these rejections.
As correctly indicated by the examiner, each of the
Sennewald references discloses all aspects of the process defined
by appealed independent claim 16 except for the here claimed
feature wherein the oxygen reactant is introduced into the
reactor separately from the ethylene and acetic acid reactants.
However, we share the examiner’s conclusion that it would have
been obvious for one with ordinary skill in the art to introduce
oxygen into the fluid bed reactor of the respective Sennewald
1On page 3 of the brief, the appellants state that “[a]ll
claims are in one group.” In light of this statement, we will
focus on independent claim 16 which is the broadest claim on
appeal, in assessing the merits of the rejections before us. See
37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7)(2002).
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007