Application of Manuel F. Leonor

SMITH, Judge.

The Patent Office Board of Appeals affirmed the examiner’s rejection of claims 15-18 in appellant’s application1 for “Carbonization of Bagasse” upon what appears to us to have been a hindsight reconstruction of the prior art. Since the board’s decision violates the intent and spirit of 35 U.S.C. § 103, we reverse. Specifically, the affirmed rejection was that the claims were “un-patentable over Mathieu2 and what is apparently conceded as old in the art in view of Thompson 3 and McIntosh 4 (35 U.S.C. 103)”.

The problem to which the claimed process is directed arises from prior…