Appeal No. 96-4152
Application 08/177,391
necessary to regenerate the filter, the heater element is
electrically heated to burn off the accumulated particulates.
Central to each of the examiner’s § 103 rejections is his
reliance on either Stobbe or Bly to provide a teaching that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
space Bloom’s resistive heater sleeve 21 from each of the
filtering elements 20, 22. In this regard, the examiner
concedes that in Bloom, the resistive heater element 21 is not
spaced from the outer surface of the inner filtering element
20 and the inner
surface of the outer filtering element 22, as called for in
each of the independent claims on appeal. Nevertheless, the
examiner contends that it would have been obvious "to space
the heating elements [of Bloom] from the surfaces of the
filter as taught by either Stobbe of Bly et al . . . for
initiating and completing incineration of particulates trapped
on both surfaces of the filter" (answer, sentence bridging
pages 5 and 6).
We cannot accept this position. A reading of Bloom’s
specification makes clear that an important aspect to Bloom’s
invention is that the heater element be in intimate contact
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