Appeal No. 2007-3827
Application 08/713,905
Appellants contend the Specification conveys to one of ordinary skill
in the art that the claimed invention “is capable of producing an ether
isocyanate having a hydrolyzable chlorine content of less than 48 ppm,”
pointing to the Examples and the disclosure at page 5, lines 19-21, of the
Specification (Br. 4; see also Reply Br. 2). With respect to the latter,
Appellants point to the disclosure “[t]he ether isocyanate may then be
isolated in pure form by known processes,” and argue the term “chemically
pure” as defined in Hawley’s Condensed Chemical Dictionary is stated to
“exist when no impurity can be detected by experimental procedures,”1 (Br.
4-5, emphasis supplied in the Brief omitted). Appellants contend
“[h]ydrolyzable chlorine is an impurity which can obviously be detected by
an experimental procedure” (Br. 5).
The issue in this ground of rejection is whether the Examiner has
established that, prima facie, as a matter of fact claim 1 does not satisfy the
requirements of § 112, first paragraph, written description requirement.
The plain language of appealed process claim 1 encompasses
processes of producing any ether (poly)isocyanate from any ether
(poly)amine comprising at least the steps of reacting any ether mono- or
poly-amine with at least a stoichiometric amount of phosgene or a
compound which generates the same under the reaction conditions, wherein
the only reaction conditions specified are “conducting the reaction in vapor
phase at a temperature of about 50 to about 800°C under pressure,” and the
product is any ether mono- or poly-isocyanate produced by the specified
1 See purity, chemical, Hawley’s Condensed Chemical Dictionary 980
(11th ed., Richard J. Lewis, Sr., revisor, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold
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