Appeal No. 1997-3785
Application No. 08/527,591
is manifested in claim 1, which first describes prior art
system and then concludes with the following recitation:
the improvement comprising:
raising the temperature of said part of said clean
gases used as a purging gas prior to entry of said
purging gas into each of said first, second and
third regenerators to be purged so as to increase
volatilization and removal of said compounds
remaining in said regenerator after the passage of
waste gases.
It is the examiner’s position that the claimed subject
matter is rendered obvious by the combined teachings of the
four applied references. As we understand the rejection of
claim 1, the examiner believes the basic method is taught by
Greco and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art to raise the temperature of the portion of the
clean gases used to purge the regenerators in view of the
teachings of Cmejrek, and
to take one of the regenerators off-line to effect purging in
view of the teachings of Swart. Aiken has additionally been
cited against all of the claims, but its disclosure of
utilizing a mist separation device is applicable only to
dependent claim 13. Notwithstanding the examiner’s referral
to the teachings of Greco and Swart, the Jepson-type claim
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