Appeal No. 95-0730
Application 08/068,575
range of a hazardous material as the examiner seems to suggest in
his remarks quoted supra. Instead, there is nothing intrinsically
wrong with the use of functional language to define what the
treatment facility does. See In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 212,
169 USPQ 226, 228 (CCPA 1971). Accordingly, we must reverse the
rejection of the appealed claims under the second paragraph of
§ 112.
With regard to the § 103 rejections of the appealed claims,
the Silinski patent does disclose a transportable facility for
treating what may be regarded as a hazardous material. Silinski’s
treatment facility, however, is specifically designed to recover
cleaning solvents from the waste of a painting process where the
waste is stored in drums, tanks or other containers at the
processing site. As such, Silinski’s treatment facility is not
equipped or even intended to extract and process a hazardous
material which is present in the ground.
The Muller patent also does not disclose a treatment plant
which is equipped to extract and process hazardous material
present in the ground. Instead, this reference merely discloses a
transportable plant for purifying a liquid such as water.
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007