Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`_______________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`_____________
`
`DAICEL CORPORATION
`Petitioner
`v.
`
`CELANESE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
`Patent Owner
`
`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Issue Date: Dec 13, 2011
`Title: REMOVAL OF PERMANGANATE REDUCING COMPOUNDS FROM
`METHANOL CARBONYLATION PROCESS STREAM
`
`Inter Partes Review No. 2015-00171
`____________________________________________________________
`
`THIRD DECLARATION OF WILLIAM C. JONES
`
`000001
`
`(cid:44)(cid:51)(cid:53)(cid:3)(cid:21)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:24)(cid:16)(cid:19)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:26)(cid:20)
`(cid:40)(cid:91)(cid:75)(cid:76)(cid:69)(cid:76)(cid:87)(cid:3)(cid:20)(cid:19)(cid:23)(cid:28)
`
`
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`_______________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`_____________
`
`DAICEL CORPORATION
`Petitioner
`v.
`
`CELANESE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
`Patent Owner
`
`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Issue Date: Dec 13, 2011
`Title: REMOVAL OF PERMANGANATE REDUCING COMPOUNDS FROM
`METHANOL CARBONYLATION PROCESS STREAM
`
`Inter Partes Review No. 2015-00171
`____________________________________________________________
`
`THIRD DECLARATION OF WILLIAM C. JONES
`
`000001
`
`(cid:44)(cid:51)(cid:53)(cid:3)(cid:21)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:24)(cid:16)(cid:19)(cid:19)(cid:20)(cid:26)(cid:20)
`(cid:40)(cid:91)(cid:75)(cid:76)(cid:69)(cid:76)(cid:87)(cid:3)(cid:20)(cid:19)(cid:23)(cid:28)
`
`
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
`
`I, William C. Jones, hereby declare and say that:
`
`1.
`
`I previously submitted a declaration, Ex. 1039, in support of Daicel’s
`
`petition for inter partes review of claims 42-44, 47-51, 53, and 55-57 of U.S.
`
`Patent No. 8,076,507 (“the ’507 Patent”). That declaration, along with Ex. 1038,
`
`my cv, details my experience, qualifications, patents, publications, and other
`
`relevant information. I am submitting this declaration in support of Petitioner
`
`Daicel’s motion to seal certain portions of the deposition transcript of Mr. Miura.
`
`2.
`
`I have worked for over 40 years in the field of industrial-scale chemical
`
`processing, including the industrial-scale production of acetic acid and acetic
`
`anhydride. Most of my work was at Eastman Chemical, and later for SIPCHEM
`
`(Saudi International Petrochemical Company). The last 5 years of my career at
`
`Eastman were spent in Eastman’s licensing group as Director of Technology.
`
`3.
`
`Based on my experience, I feel I have a sufficient understanding and
`
`knowledge base to comment on the typical policies and practices employed in the
`
`industry with respect to the safeguarding of process information as proprietary and
`
`confidential information that, absent some reason otherwise, is not shared with the
`
`public or with competitors.
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
`
`4.
`
`The exact process operating conditions for a process such as that used to
`
`manufacture acetic acid (such as temperatures, pressures, reflux ratios, recycle
`
`streams, etc.), as well as equipment design details (such as using a stirred reactor or
`
`bubble column reactor; distillation column with trays, random packing or
`
`structured packing; extraction equipment using mixer-settlers, packed columns or
`
`reciprocating plate extractors) comprise the “know-how” that would be used to
`
`design and operate the process. In my experience, such process know-how is
`
`protected from disclosure to the public or to potential competitors. One reason for
`
`protecting and maintaining process know-how as confidential information is to
`
`prevent competitors from using such know-how in the design and/or operation of
`
`their own processes. This helps maintain a competitive advantage over
`
`competitors or potential competitors who might be considering entering the
`
`market. There is also potential economic value when the know-how is licensed,
`
`such that royalties are generated. Therefore, process know-how is considered
`
`valuable intellectual property in the chemical industry, which value is derived at
`
`least in part by virtue of it being kept confidential.
`
`5.
`
`The specific process information that Daicel wishes to protect as
`
`confidential in this proceeding, such as details regarding the temperatures used in
`
`specific operations, the ratio of a given stream that is either sent on to the next step
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
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`or recycled somewhere in the process, the residence times in various pieces of
`
`equipment, and the details of the specific type of equipment being used (e.g.,
`
`packed column versus trays or plates) is the type of information that would fall
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`under company know-how. Such information would typically be kept confidential
`
`for the reasons mentioned above, absent a specific reason and authorization to
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`disclose it.
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`6.
`
`Even when such information is kept confidential, however, this is not to say
`
`that one of ordinary skill in the art could not figure out how to operate a given
`
`process. Indeed, this is the basic function of a chemical engineer or chemist in this
`
`industry, who usually work together to design and develop a process, and then
`
`work to implement that process in practice. Such implementation often requires
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`adjustments to the original design, and/or optimization within a range of conditions
`
`for each stage of the process. There are two primary sources of information that
`
`one skilled in the art can use to determine a reasonable approximation of the
`
`process conditions that might be used in a given process. These sources include
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`the process conditions disclosed in patents and process descriptions in the open
`
`literature, and a general understanding of the desirable operating conditions and
`
`constraints that determine the process design.
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
`
`7.
`
`It is important to keep in mind that the various carbonylation technologies
`
`for making acetic acid (i.e., the original “Monsanto” process, the “low-water”
`
`process, and the “anhydrous” process) all have many similar operating conditions
`
`and unit operations. The process similarities and conditions are well-known to
`
`engineers and chemists skilled in the art.
`
`8.
`
`As one example, it is known that for all of these processes, the carbonylation
`
`reactor must operate at elevated pressures in order to keep the CO partial pressure
`
`and dissolved CO at reasonably high levels and to keep the volatile components
`
`such as methyl iodide in the liquid phase. However, the downstream flash needs to
`
`be at low pressure in order to achieve an amount of adiabatic flash that is as a high
`
`a level as possible because this is the transport mechanism that removes the acetic
`
`acid product out of the reaction zone and onward to distillation. Thus, it is well
`
`understood that the operating range of pressures for the carbonylation reactor are
`
`450 to 750 psig (30 to 50 bar) and the operating range of pressures for the flash
`
`operation is 30 to 65 psig (2 to 5 bar gage). It is desirable to drop the pressure as
`
`much as possible for the adiabatic flash in order to flash as much of the volatile
`
`components as possible. But, it is also known that some residual pressure is
`
`needed in the flash vessel in order to leave behind some dissolved CO for catalyst
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
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`stability and also to allow condensing the volatile methyl iodide at a reasonable
`
`condensing temperature and heat exchanger surface area.
`
`9.
`
`The above discussion is representative of the background knowledge that
`
`someone skilled in the art would use to understand the carbonylation process
`
`conditions. Similar knowledge and analyses would apply to other specific areas or
`
`equipment within the overall acetic acid manufacturing process.
`
`10.
`
`Thus, it is my experience and opinion that companies in this industry do not
`
`reveal their specific process conditions that they have worked hard to develop and
`
`optimize, usually over many years and with man-hours of effort. There is
`
`economic value in keeping such information confidential. At the same time,
`
`however, someone skilled in the art and familiar with the carbonylation process
`
`would generally be able to arrive at similar values through the appropriate
`
`application of time, effort, and expense. That one of skill in the art could do so
`
`does not, in my opinion, diminish the value of keeping such information
`
`confidential unless and until it is otherwise made public for some other reason.
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`11.
`
`I declare that all statements made herein of my knowledge are true, and that
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`all statements made on information and belief are believed to be true, and that
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`these statements were made with the knowledge that willful false statements and
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`Patent No. 8,076,507
`Third Declaration of Mr. William C. Jones
`
`Exhibit 1049
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`the like so made are punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, under Section
`
`1001 of Title 18 of the United States Code.
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