Appeal No. 98-3297
Application 08/564,044
to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a
consequence of our review, we have made the determination that
the examiner’s rejections will not be sustained. Our reasons
follow.
Like appellants, we see no disclosure, teaching or
suggestion in Egli concerning a method of triggering a urinal
flushing event based on a calculated or determined temperature
gradient exceeding a preset limit. Indeed, as urged by
appellants in their reply brief, it appears that the system of
Egli is incapable of determining a temperature gradient, since
it has no structural feature which would allow (or be capable
of) calculating or determining a temperature gradient. The
examiner’s position in the answer (page 4) that the control of
Egli “may be (should such be selected) responsive to a
temperature change over time” and that “[t]he control, then,
would be operable for ‘determining’ a temperature gradient
since the sensed changing temperature can only initiate
flushing when a preset time period has been surpassed,” in our
opinion, is clearly based on impermissible hindsight gained
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