Appeal No. 1996-2320
Application 08/221,224
person would have combined Koch’s disclosure of static mixers
with Marske’s disclosure regarding using a high length to
width ratio in a water sewage chlorination chamber to obtain
plug flow. It is clear that the motivation relied upon by
the examiner for combining the references so as to arrive at
appellant’s claimed process comes solely from the description
of appellant's process in his specification. Thus, the
examiner used impermissible hindsight when rejecting the
claims. See W.L. Gore & Associates v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d
1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984); In re Rothermel, 276 F.2d 393,
396, 125 USPQ 328, 331 (CCPA 1960). Accordingly, we reverse
the examiner’s rejection.
Under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we enter the
following new ground of rejection.
Claims 1-4 and 8-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Guertin in view of Koch.
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