Appeal No. 2004-2019
Application No. 10/301,441 Page 12
organic acids in a feed stream containing any amount of MTBE.
Morever, because both the claimed and Knifton’s process streams
contain the same or similar components, one of ordinary skill in
the art would have reasonably expected that either of them would
be useful in Knifton’s process. One ordinary skill in the art
would have been led to employ Knifton’s process to remove organic
acids from MTBE feed streams containing greater than 50% MTBE,
motivated by a reasonable expectation of reducing organic acid
impurities in the feed streams. See also In re Kemps, 97 F.3d
1427, 1430, 40 USPQ2d 1309, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 1996).
Even if the claims on appeal require removal of oxygenated
impurities, as urged by the appellant, my conclusion would not be
changed. Knifton in Table IV teaches removing at least 0.4% of
such impurities. According to page 2 of the specification, the
removal of such amount of MeOH is recognized to be very
significant in the art. Thus, even if one of ordinary skill in
the art is only interested in removing oxygenated impurities,
such person would have been led to use Knifton’s process for
removing oxygenated impurities in the claimed process stream.
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