Appeal No. 2004-2118 Page 6
Application 09/329,502
and 3 together as a group (brief, page 10). Consequently, claims
1, 4-6, 8 and 9 stand or fall together and we select claim 1 as
a representative claim for that grouping of claims.
Appellants do not particularly argue that the claimed
process patentably differs from the teachings of the applied
references other than by way of the catalysts employed. Hence,
appellants’ principal arguments with the examiner’s obviousness
position center on the catalysts for the alkylation and
transalkylation zones as called for in representative claim 1.
Appellants contend that the transalkylation zone catalyst as
required by representative claim 1 is not suggested by the
allegedly broad disclosure of West notwithstanding the fact that
West discloses overlapping silica/alumina ratios, overlapping
pore sizes and overlapping surface areas for molecular sieves
that are disclosed in West as useful transalkylation catalyst
materials. According to appellants, this is especially so since
the surface areas reported for the molecular sieves by West are
for an unhydrated catalyst precursor.3
3 The catalyst precursor can be subsequently hydrated to
produce a hydrated catalyst that is used in the transalkylation
reaction, which hydrated catalyst allegedly would have a higher
surface area than the unhydrated precursor. See, e.g., column 9,
(continued...)
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