Appeal No. 94-4357
Application No. 07/739,050
whole would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the
art. Accordingly, we affirm the examiner’s decision rejecting
claims 1, 2, 4 through 7, 15 through 20, 33 through 36 and 51
through 54 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
However, claims 8 through 11, 13, 14, 37 through 44 and
46 through 50 are on a different footing. As argued by
appellants (Brief, page 10), the examiner initially has not
established that it would have been obvious to employ each and
every purification step recited in claim 8 and its dependent
claims. The examiner does not supply any evidence that would
have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to employ
various purifications steps, especially a step for removing
entrained pulp fibers from the exhaust gas. For example,
nowhere does the examiner demonstrate that the existence of
entrained pulp fibers in the exhaust gas, much less the
removal of such fibers from the exhaust gas, is known at the
time the present application was filed. As also argued by
appellants (Brief, pages 13-14), the examiner has not
established that it would have been obvious to reuse a purge
gas containing impurities in a pulp consistency increasing
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