Appeal No. 95-4020
Application No. 08/096,337
process chamber so as to raise the carbon potential of the
furnace atmosphere in the process chamber by at least about .1%;
and
v) discharging the ferrous metal parts from the furnace.
The references relied upon by the examiner as evidence of
obviousness are:
European patent (Stickles) 024,106 Feb. 25, 1981
British patent (Paterson) 2,076,023 Nov. 25, 1981
German patent (Mueller) 205,187 Dec. 12, 1983
Kühn, “Carburizing with Direct-feed Mixtures of Natural Gas and
Air,” Heat Treatment of Metals, (1993.2) pp. 39-44.
Metals Handbook, “Gas Carburizing,” Ninth Edition, Vol. 4 (1979)
pp. 135-175.
The appealed claims are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Kühn or alternatively as being
unpatentable over Stickles or Mueller or Paterson in view of the
Metals Handbook.
None of the above noted rejections can be sustained.
As correctly indicated by the appellant, the applied prior
art contains no teaching or suggestion concerning the here
claimed step iii) of providing an endothermic carrier gas formed
by partial reaction of fuel gas and air and feeding the carrier
gas into the process chamber in combination with the here claimed
step iv) of feeding an air and enriching gas simultaneously into
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