Appeal No. 1995-3349 Page 6
Application No. 08/066,994
skilled in the art would reasonably have been following the
suggested prior art deaeration teachings in balancing the
degree and cost of deaeration with the disclosed benefits of
enhanced cleaning in arriving at the claimed deaeration
(dissolved oxygen content) ranges.
We note that the examiner's rejection (answer, pages 3-5),
as further explained above, appears to be a reasonable
presentation of a prima facie case of obviousness of the
subject matter of appealed claim 1. However, it is our opinion2
that the evidence of obviousness furnished by the examiner is
outweighed by the countervailing arguments (brief, pages 15-17
and evidence (specification, Example 2 and Figure 3) furnished
by appellant. Appellant contends that the prior art teachings
relied upon by the examiner when considered in light of the
entirety of the present record lack a suggestion to use the
claimed deaeration levels. In this regard, the claimed
deaeration levels are urged to be considerably above the
maximum obtainable and most likely suggested for cavitation
2Dependent claim 5 has not been separately argued.
Accordingly, the patentability of claim 5 rises or falls with
claim 1.
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