Ex parte Henricson

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Sep 20, 1999

07861387 (B.P.A.I. Sep. 20, 1999)

Application for patent filed March 31, 1992. According1
to appellants, the application is a continuation-in-part of
Application No. 07/839,389, filed February 21, 1992.
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered
today (1) was not written for publication in a law
journal and (2) is not binding precedent of the
Board.
Paper No. 21
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte KAJ HENRICSON
____________
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,3871
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before KIMLIN, JOHN D. SMITH, and PAK, Administrative Patent
Judges.
PAK, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is a decision on an appeal from the examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1 through 15. Claims 16 through 21 stand
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
2
withdrawn from consideration by the examiner as being drawn to
a non-elected invention.
Claim 1, the broadest claim in the application, reads as
follows:
1. A method of treating filtrates from bleach plants for
bleaching cellulosic pulp, including utilizing at least one
ozone bleaching stage, comprising the steps of:
(a) washing the pulp in a washer with a wash liquid prior
to the ozone bleaching stage, the wash liquid including
filtrate from another washing stage of a bleaching stage;
(b) oxidizing the organic material in the filtrate used
as wash liquid in step (a) prior to its use in step (a) in
order to make the organic material less attractive to ozone in
the ozone bleaching stage; and
(c) ozone bleaching the washed pulp in said at least one
ozone bleaching stage.
As evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies on the
following prior art:
Phillips et al. (Phillips) 4,372,812 Feb. 08,
1983
Stawicki 4,543,155 Sep. 24,
1985
Elton 4,806,203 Feb. 21,
1989
Azarniouch et al. (Azarniouch) 5,061,343 Oct. 29,
1991
(Filed May 30,
1990)
Griggs et al. (Griggs) 5,211,811 May 18,
1993
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
The examiner states that "[claim 17 is rejected under 352
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over [Griggs] as applied to
claim 16 above, and further in view of [Azarniouch]." See
Answer, page 4. However, both claims 16 and 17 were withdrawn
from consideration by the examiner himself during prosecution
of the present application. See the final Office action dated
February 2, 1994, Paper No. 11. Note also that no appeal is
directed to the rejection of claim 17. See the Notice of
Appeal dated May 9, 1994, Paper No. 12. Accordingly, we will
not consider the merits of this rejection and will dismiss it.
The examiner inadvertently states that "[c]laims 1, 2,3
11-13 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over [Griggs] as applied to claim 18 above, and
further in view of [Stawicki]." See Answer, page 3. It is
clear from the Answer that the rejection of claims 1, 2, 11-13
and 15 is based on the combined disclosures of Griggs and
Stawicki and that no rejection of claim 18 is set forth in the
Answer. See Answer, pages 3 and 4.
The examiner inadvertently states that "[c]laim 14 is4
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
3
(Filed May 02,
1990)
The appealed claims stand rejected as follows :2
(1) Claims 1, 2, 11 through 13 and 15 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of
Griggs and Stawicki ;3
(2) Claim 14 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over the combined disclosures of Griggs, Stawicki
and Phillips ;4
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
[Griggs and Stawicki] as applied to claim 19 above, and
further in view of [Phillips]." See Answer, page 3. It is
clear from the Answer that the rejection of claim 14 is based
on the combined disclosures of Griggs, Stawicki and Phillips
and that no rejection of claim 19 is set forth in the Answer.
See Answer, pages 3-6.
4
(3) Claims 3, 4 and 10 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of Griggs,
Stawicki and Azarniouch; and
(4) Claims 5 through 9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as unpatentable over the combined disclosures of Griggs,
Stawicki and Elton.
We reverse each of the foregoing rejections.
As evidence of obviousness, the examiner primarily relies
on the combined disclosures of Griggs and Stawicki. See
Answer, pages 3-8. Griggs teaches a process for delignifying
and bleaching a lignocellulosic pulp, without the use of
elemental chlorine. See the Abstract. The process involves,
inter alia, washing the pulp in a washing stage with a wash
liquid recycled from another washing step and bleaching the
resulting pulp with ozone in an ozone bleaching stage. See
Figures 1 and 2, in conjunction with column 20, lines 14-21.
The wash liquid may be treated by reverse osmosis to provide
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
5
an even cleaner filtrate to avoid the build-up of chloride.
See column 22, lines 59-67. Griggs, however, does not teach
oxidizing the organic material in the wash liquid prior to
using it in the above mentioned washing stage to improve the
efficiency of the ozone bleaching stage.
To remedy this deficiency in Griggs, the examiner refers
to the disclosure of Stawicki. See Answer, page 3. Relying
on column 7, lines 17-28, of the Stawicki disclosure, the
examiner concludes (Answer, page 3) that:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to oxygenate the organics in the
filtrate of [Griggs] to make the organics less
attractive to the bleaching chemical (ozone) in the
bleaching stage of [Griggs] in the manner taught by
[Stawicki] to make more effective use of the
bleaching agent (ozone).
The dispositive question is, therefore, whether it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to treat
the wash water with oxygen prior to its use in a washing stage
which comes before an ozone bleaching stage. We answer this
question in the negative.
We find that Stawicki teaches introducing oxygen into the
dilution zone of an extraction stage or into wash recycle
filtrate which is supplied to the dilution zone of an
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
6
extraction stage. See column 4, lines 3-32 and column 7,
lines 17-28. According to column 7, lines 17-21, of Stawicki:
It is believed that oxygen introduced into the
dilution zone is effective to permit chemicals
downstream of the extraction stage to which oxygen
is supplied to react more fully with the pulp rather
than with compounds dissolved in or carried by the
filtrate.
Nowhere does Stawicki indicate that oxygen will function
similarly as the reverse osmosis described in Griggs. Nor
does Stawicki indicate that oxidizing the organic in the wash
water will make the ozone bleaching described in Griggs more
effective. Under this circumstance, we cannot agree with the
examiner that Stawicki would have suggested adding oxygen to
the washing liquid described in Griggs prior to its use in the
washing step which is immediately before an ozone bleaching
stage. Note that the extraction stage described in Griggs
comes after an ozone bleaching stage. The remaining
references, namely Azarniouch, Phillips and Elton, relied upon
by the examiner to show the features recited in dependent
claims 3 through 10 and 14 do not remedy the deficiencies in
Griggs and Stawicki.
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
7
In view of the foregoing, we reverse the examiner’s
decision rejecting claims 1 through 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
No period for taking any subsequent action in connection
with this appeal may be extended under 37 CFR § 1.136(a).
REVERSED
EDWARD C. KIMLIN )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOHN D. SMITH ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
CHUNG K. PAK )
Administrative Patent Judge )
CKP:lp
Appeal No. 1995-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
8
NIXON & VANDERHYE PC
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1100 NORTH GLEBE ROAD
ARLINGTON, VA 22201-4714
Leticia
Appeal No. 95-4804
Application No. 07/861,387
APJ PAK
APJ JOHN D. SMITH
APJ KIMLIN
DECISION: REVERSED
Send Reference(s): Yes No
or Translation (s)
Panel Change: Yes No
Index Sheet-2901 Rejection(s): _____
Prepared: October 10, 2000
Draft Final
3 MEM. CONF. Y N
OB/HD GAU
PALM / ACTS 2 / BOOK
DISK (FOIA) / REPORT