Appeal No. 2005-0374 Page 2
Application No. 09/891,780
INTRODUCTION
The Examiner maintains rejections under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(b) and 103(a).1 As evidence
of unpatentability, the Examiner relies upon the following documentation:
Smith et al. (Smith) 5,089,241 Feb. 18, 1992
Admitted Prior Art, Specification, p. 3, ll. 4-7
The Examiner rejects Claims 1, 2, and 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being clearly
anticipated by Smith and further rejects claims 1-4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Smith in view of the Admitted Prior Art. The Admitted Prior Art is added to reject claim 3.
The bases for rejection are articulated on pages 3 and 4 of the Answer.
Appellants state that “[c]laims 1-4 are appealed together.” (Brief, p. 3).2 No claim is
argued separately (Brief, § VIII). We select claim 1 to represent the issues on appeal for each of
the rejections. Claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A process for removing arsenic compounds from the distillation bottoms obtained in
the distillation of arsenic-containing hydrogen fluoride comprising
(a) concentrating distillation bottoms by evaporation of hydrogen fluoride until the
temperature at the bottoms is from 40 to 60/C, and
(b) reacting residue resulting from (a) with calcium hydroxide, calcium oxide, or a mixture
thereof.
OPINION
1The Examiner states that issues 3 and 4 (Brief, § VI), i.e., the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, have been
overcome (Answer, § (6)).
2All references to the “Brief” are to Appellants’ Corrected Appeal Brief filed on June 7th, 2004. The
Corrected Brief replaced the Brief filed on December 22nd, 2003 which replaced the Brief filed October 17th, 2003.
We, therefore, consider the issues as addressed in the Corrected Brief of June 7th, 2004 and the Answer mailed
August 2nd, 2004.
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