Appeal 2006-2439
Application 09/986,446
The Examiner has entered the following grounds of rejection:
Claims 12 and 21-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Takayuki and Gesing;
Claims 14-17 and 20-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Takayuki, Gesing and Dove;
Claims 18, 22 and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Takayuki, Gesing and Walker.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the
Examiner and the Appellants regarding the above noted rejections, we make
reference to the Answer (mailed December 2, 2005) for the Examiner's
reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the Brief (filed October 25,
2005) for Appellants' arguments of thereagainst.
OPINION
Claims 12 and 21-24 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
obvious over Takayuki and Gesing. We select claims 12 and 24, as
representative of the rejected claims.
The Examiner asserts that Takayuki discloses a device and method for
filtering and adding a grain refining material to a metal melt comprising a
first filter, a grain refining material feed down straining from said first filter
and a second filter down stream from the first filter. The Examiner
recognizes that Takayuki does not teach the second filter is a deep-bed filter.
The Examiner asserts Gesing teaches a device and a method for filtering
molten metal that comprises a deep-bed filter as the second filter in the
process of filtering the molten metal. The Examiner asserts that it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
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