Appeal No. 96-3679
Application 08/179,861
The Claimed Subject Matter
The claims on appeal are directed to system and process for purifying impure water by reverse
osmosis. Claim 5 is representative of the claimed subject matter and reads as follows:
5. A process for purifying impure water which comprises:
passing a stream of impure water through a reverse osmosis step including a
reverse osmosis membrane to produce a first purified water stream and a waste water
stream,
passing said waste water stream to a means for deionizing water to produce
purified deionized water, directing said purified deionized water to said reverse osmosis
step to produce a second purified water stream. [sic]
and recovering said first purified water stream and said second purified water
stream wherein said first purified water stream and said second purified water stream are
passed through said reverse osmosis membrane only once.
References of Record
The following references of record are relied upon by the examiner in support of the rejection of
the claims:2
Ackermann et al. (Ackermann) 4,787,980 Nov. 29, 1988
Hanna et al. (Hanna) 5,282,972 Feb. 1, 1994
(filed Dec. 18, 1991)
Societe Nouvelle Des Etablissements2,207,868 Jun. 21, 1974
A. Sadon (French patent)3
The examiner cited Guter, U.S. Patent No. 4,206,048 issued June 3, 1980 and a portion of a book by Mark J.2
Hammer, Water and Wastewater Technology, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, pp. 287-290 (1986) as prior art of record.
However, neither of these references has been relied upon by the examiner in the rejections before us. Accordingly, we
have not considered them in our consideration of the rejections.
Our consideration of this reference is based on an English language translation which is of record.3
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