Appeal No. 2003-2012
Application No. 09/981,454
by evidence of nonobviousness shown by the Williams declaration
and the subject specification in relation to the advantage of
separately introduced feed streams. In this regard, the
appellants specifically refer to lines 12-20 on page 6 of their
specification which states that “[t]his unique feature of the
fluid bed process allows significantly higher levels of oxygen to
be safely employed in the conversion of acetic acid and ethylene
to vinyl acetate without danger of flammability” and that “[t]he
utilization of higher levels of oxygen permit substantially
higher levels of ethylene and acetic acid conversion than are
possible in the fixed bed processes.” The appellants’ contention
lacks persuasive merit.
We acknowledge that the fluidized-bed process under
consideration yields higher levels of conversion than are
possible in a fixed bed process and that such higher levels of
conversion clearly are advantageous. Contrary to the appellants’
belief, however, this advantage does not evince nonobviousness.
This is because such higher conversion levels would have been
expected for a fluidized bed process since each of the Sennewald
references expressly teaches this advantage (e.g., see lines 8-16
on page 2 of Sennewald ‘623 and lines 19-51 on page 2 of
Sennewald ‘624). Concerning this point, we emphasize to the
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