Opinion ID: 767687
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Patentability of Claims 41, 45 and 46

Text: 71 Gartside argues that the Board erred in its sua sponte holding that claims 41, 45, and 46 are unpatentable under § 103 based on the '645 patent in view of the Castagnos patent, or on those two patents in view of the '235 patent. Gartside contends that the Board erred in combining those patents, because there was no teaching or suggestion to use a 0.1 to 0.6 second kinetic residence time in a catalytic cracking process. Gartside further argues that his showing of unexpected results, as described in the second Johnson Declaration, constitutes a secondary consideration weighing in favor of nonobviousness, and that the Board erred in discounting those results. The Commissioner responds that the Board correctly held that the claims were unpatentable, arguing that the motivation to combine the references arose from the references themselves, as well as the nature of the problem to be solved, viz., maximizing reaction conditions in cracking processes by minimizing residence time. The Commissioner further contends that Gartside's evidence of unexpected results is not probative of nonobviousness, as the examples disclosed in the second Johnson Declaration do not correspond to any process within the scope of the claims at issue. 72 We agree with the Commissioner that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that a motivation to combine the '645, '235, and Castagnos patents arose from the teachings of the references themselves and the nature of the problem to be solved. 10 As the Board found, use of low residence times to arrest undesired cracking in the '645 and '235 patents was part of a trend in the art towards short residence times. Gartside, Paper No. 72 at 27; see '645 patent, col. 1, ll. 61-67 (disclosing residence times of between 0.05 to 0.4 seconds); '235 patent, title (LOW RESIDENCE TIME SOLID-GAS SEPARATION DEVICE AND SYSTEM) and col. 7, ll. 26-31 (disclosing that adjustment of the claimed apparatus may yield residence times of 0.1 and 0.5 seconds). In view of this trend, one of ordinary skill who was attempting to minimize undesired cracking reactions would have been directed by these two patents to the Castagnos patent, which describes low residence time catalytic reactions and which discloses the precise residence time in the disputed claims. See Castagnos patent, col. 2, ll. 6-12 (disclosing residence times of about 0.1 to about 1 second). Accordingly, we conclude that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that a motivation existed to combine these patents to obtain the invention claimed in claims 41, 45, and 46. 73 Gartside also argues that the Board erred in finding that the second Johnson declaration, which allegedly contains evidence of unexpected results, 11 did not weigh in favor of the patentability of claims 41, 45, and 46. We disagree. The Board essentially adopted the APJ's order to show cause as it pertained to the second Johnson declaration, finding that the process recited in the declaration failed to reproduce the separation and quenching steps of the claimed process. See Gartside, Paper No. 72 at 35-36. This finding is supported by the declarant's own statements, which reveal that the quench in the declaration experiment preceded the separation of product from catalyst. See Paper No. 48 at 3, ¶ 9. Accordingly, we agree with the Commissioner that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that the examples in the declaration do not correspond to any process within the scope of the claims, and the declaration is therefore not probative of nonobviousness. See Gartside, Paper No. 72 at 35-36. 74 In summary, we conclude that all of the Board's disputed factfindings are supported by substantial evidence and that the Board did not err as a matter of law in holding that claims 41, 45, and 46 are invalid under § 103. 12