Appeal No. 95-4838
Application No. 08/131,643
Examiner’s Answer does the examiner rely upon Howard in the
statutory rejection of the aforementioned claims. See the
Answer, Page 3, Section (9). Hence, we may not consider the
disclosure of Howard with respect to these claims. In the
absence of this required feature, the examiner’s rejection is
not sustainable.
Finally, we consider the rejection of claims 9, 17 and 22
as unpatentable over Figure 1 in view Kito or Yeh and further
in view of Howard, Diachuk or Buelt. The examiner suggests
that motivation to replace the electrostatic filters of Yeh or
Kito with a HEPA filter and a mist eliminator would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in order to
simplify the waste gas purifier. See Answer, page 4. We
disagree. There is no factual support on the record before us
to indicate that the use of a HEPA filter is either simpler
than or equivalent to use of an electrostatic filter.
Accordingly, the examiner has not shown why the teachings of
the applied art should be combined in the proposed manner.
“Obviousness cannot be established by combining the teachings
of the prior art to produce the claimed invention, absent some
teaching, suggestion or incentive supporting the combination.”
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007