Appeal No. 2005-0183
Application No. 09/206,218
With regard to the rejection of claims 15, 18, 20 and 21
over Eberly alone, the examiner makes the same findings from
Eberly as discussed above (Answer, paragraph bridging pages 5-6).
The examiner recognizes that Eberly does not disclose any
treatment of a MFI crystalline silicate as claimed by appellants,
nor does the reference disclose a post-treatment silicon:aluminum
atomic ratio of at least 180 (Answer, page 6).2 The examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to treat MFI crystalline silicates in the
process of Eberly since Eberly does not limit the process to any
specific zeolite (Answer, page 6). The examiner also concludes
that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art to treat a zeolite with any silica:alumina ratio since Eberly
discloses treating zeolites having “extremely high”
silica:alumina ratios, including ratios greater than 20, as well
as disclosing several examples where the treated zeolites “are
essentially free of alumina” (id.).
2
2Claims 15, 18, 20 and 21 require a silicon:aluminum atomic
ratio of at least 300 (e.g., see claim 15 on appeal). Therefore
we presume the examiner mistakenly states that a ratio of “at
least 180" would have been obvious in view of Eberly, but meant
to state a ratio of “at least 300.” However, this error is moot
in view of our disposition of the rejections infra.
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