Appeal No. 1997-3785
Application No. 08/527,591
To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole
or from the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary
skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. V. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837
F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1052 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The appellants’ invention is directed to the treatment by
incineration of air or gases containing toxic or odorous
fumes, including vapors in the form of mist, which emanate
from manufacturing processes. The invention comprises an
improvement to a known system in which the gases are exposed
to a succession of regenerators which communicate with a
combustion chamber. According to the appellants, it is
typical to utilize three regenerators which receive gases from
a common gas inlet and discharge to a common combustion
chamber, from which “clean” gas is expelled to the atmosphere.
It is common practice to pass the gases successively through
two of the three regenerators, while the third regenerator is
purged of waste gases and contaminants. Purging is
accomplished, in the prior art systems, by recirculating a
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