Appeal No. 2006-1551
Application No. 10/015,863
Moreover, as explained by the examiner and conceded by the
appellant (e.g., see page 2 of the reply brief), Fletcher teaches
that his light naphtha fraction may be desulfurized via a wet
caustic wash as required by claim 11. Thus, the only remaining
claim distinction in dispute on this appeal concerns the use of
first and second hydrodesulfurization catalyst reactors as
required by claim 11 rather than the use of first and second
hydrodesulfurization catalyst beds in a single reactor as
disclosed by Fletcher.
Regarding this claim distinction, it is the examiner’s basic
position that an artisan would have found it obvious to replace
the first and second hydrodesulfurization catalyst beds of
Fletcher’s process with first and second hydrodesulfurization
catalyst reactors. The appellant argues that the Fletcher
reference contains no teaching or suggestion of using two
catalyst reactors rather than two catalyst beds and that the
proposed use of reactors would not be equivalent to patentee’s
use of beds.
In response to these arguments, we point out that Fletcher
discloses the concept of multiple reactor use (e.g., see figure
1). Although patentee uses these multiple reactors for
performing different catalytic reactions, the Fletcher patent
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