Appeal No. 95-0339
Application 07/881,941
use of an attenuated total reflectance plate. Moreover, it
appears that the teaching by Burgess that “prolonged contact
with a reaction volume may foul the first surface of the
waveguide [i.e., attenuated total reflectance plate] and
seriously impair the usefulness of the spectroscopic device”
(col. 13, lines 48-51) would have discouraged one of ordinary
skill in the art from providing and using a means for separating
contaminants from a supercritical fluid and depositing them on
an attenuated total reflectance plate as required by appellant’s
claims.
The examiner argues that “Pujado et al employs supercritical
fluid to remove contaminants (hydrocarbons) from an aqueous
stream and later separates the supercritical fluid from the
contaminants in the same manner as appellant, by pressure
release. The method of separation is well-known in the art of
supercritical solvents and is certainly not novel” (answer, page
8).
This argument is not well taken because the question is not
whether Pujado’s separation by pressure release is the same as
that of appellant, but whether the applied prior art would have
8
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