Application of Robert B. Egbert and Alfred Saffer

WORLEY, Chief Judge.

This is an appeal from the decision of the Board of Appeals affirming the examiner’s rejection of all claims in appellants’ application for a “Process for the Preparation of Ethylene Oxide” as unpatentable over certain prior art. Four ■ claims were also rejected as being too broad.

Claim 5 is representative and reads:

“In a process for producing ethylene oxide by the partial oxidation at superatmospheric pressures of ethylene by means of gaseous oxygen in the presence of a silver containing catalyst, the steps of preventing catalyst inactivation and suppressing excessive…