Appeal No. 2006-1660
Application No. 10/609,087
However, we fully concur with appellants that the original
specification reasonably conveys to one of ordinary skill in the
art that appellants had possession of the concept that the
claimed process can be performed without the use of lithium
halide. Indeed, appellants' specification exemplifies processes
within the scope of the appealed claims that do not employ a
lithium halide. Accordingly, the examiner's § 112, first
paragraph rejection is reversed.
We will sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 42-50,
70 and 72 over Senga to the extent it is based on § 103. There
is no dispute that Senga, like appellants, discloses a process
for preparing PPS polymers by reacting an aqueous metal
hydroxide and a polar organic compound to form an alkali metal
aminoalkanoate which, in turn, is reacted with a sulfur source
and a dihaloaromatic compound to form the PPS polymer. While we
agree with appellants that Senga does not provide a clear
description of not isolating the aminoalkanoate from solution
for purposes of § 102, we are convinced that it would have been
obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to forego the time
and cost of the isolation step before reacting the amino-
alkanoate with a sulfur source and dihaloaromatic compound to
form the PPS polymer. As pointed out by the examiner, Senga
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