Appeal No. 2006-1660
Application No. 10/609,087
Campbell's disclosure of atmospheric pressure for the first
dehydration step would have rendered obvious performing a second
dehydration step under substantially the same pressure, in the
absence of disclosure to the contrary. Furthermore, it is well
settled that where patentability is predicated upon a change in
a condition of a prior art composition or a process, such as a
change in concentration, temperature, pressure or the like, the
burden is on the applicant to establish with objective evidence
that the change is critical, i.e., it leads to a new, unexpected
result. In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1578, 16 USPQ2d 1934,
1936 (Fed. Cir. 1990). In the present case, appellants have
proffered no such evidence. Appellants' pointing to the
elevated pressures during Campbell's polymerization step is
irrelevant to the pressure used for the second dehydration step
prior to polymerization.
Concerning the contaminant levels of claims 50 and 72, for
the reasons set forth above with respect to the rejection over
Senga, we find that it is reasonable to conclude that the
polymer product of Campbell has similar low contamination
levels, particularly in light of the obviousness of employing
the stainless steel reaction vessels of Koyama.
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