Appeal No. 1999-2204 Page 8
Application No. 08/951,003
The examiner’s position with regard to claim 14 is that spray from Dunn’s pipe 52
will “fall down under the force of gravity to intersect the incoming gas at the inlet pipe,” and
that “the leftmost (unnumbered) nozzle (22) of Gleason intersects the gas within gas inlet
pipe (2)” (Answer, page 11). We do not agree. This claim requires that there be ejecting
means for ejecting scrubbing water “into said gas inlet means to prewet the continuous
flow of charged gas as said charged gas passes through said inlet means” (emphasis
added). Dunn explicitly teaches that the charged gas be subjected to “prewashing”
(column 2, line 37), which is accomplished, as shown in Figure 1, by a plurality of upward
oriented nozzles (53) located in the path of the gas stream beneath the trays that hold the
scrubbing water through which the gas bubbles. The gas inlet (47) is upstream of the
prewashing nozzles. In our view, the continuous flow of charged gas issuing from the gas
inlet would propel the prewash water spraying from its pipe along with it, rather than
allowing it to move upstream, as would be necessary to support the examiner’s position.
To conclude otherwise would be speculation. Moreover, even if one were to accept the
examiner’s theory, the water spraying from nozzles 53 is not ejected into the gas inlet
means to prewet the gas as it passes through the inlet means, as is required by the claim.
A like situation exists with
respect to the Gleason apparatus (Figure 1).
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