Appeal No. 2003-0849
Application 09/622,916
THE REJECTION3
The Examiner rejected claims 1 to 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious
over the combination of Herbst, Frank and Egly.4 (Answer, pp. 5-6).
OPINION
Upon careful review of the respective positions advanced by Appellants and
the Examiner, we find ourselves in agreement with Appellants’ position in that the
Examiner has failed to carry the burden of establishing a prima facie case of
obviousness. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed.
Cir. 1992); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1471-72, 223 USPQ 785, 787-88
(Fed. Cir. 1984). Accordingly, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejections. We
will limit our discussion to independent claims 1 and 10.
We find claims 1 and 10 are directed to a process for the production of
acrylic or methacrylic acid. The process comprises the rectificative isolation of
3 The Examiner relied on the following references in the prior art rejection:
Frank et al. (Frank) 4,600,795 Jul. 15, 1986
Egly et al. (Egly) 5,780,679
Jul. 14, 1998
Herbst et al. (Herbst) EP 0717029 Jun. 19, 1996
4 In rendering this decision we have considered the English language translation of the Herbst
reference which has been filed in the record.
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