Appeal No. 1996-2077
Application 08/271,922
we find no basis for the examiner’s assertion that one of ordinary skill in the art would have
been motivated to modify the support for the catalytic converter described by Carr to
include a tortuous flow path in the manner described by Cornelison. Cornelison teaches
that the objective of the alternating series of U bends in the metal strip in the catalytic
converter disclosed therein, is to allow the slow build up and retention of particles in the
converter so that they can be burned off intermittently. Cornelison,
col. 4, lines 40-56. This design enables the particles in diesel exhaust to be distributed
throughout the converter so that the “pressure drop” (the difference in pressure at the input
end and the pressure at the output end of the converter) builds up slowly, thus allowing the
engine to function more efficiently. Id., and at col. 1, line 64- col. 2, line 9. Cornelison does
not teach or suggest that this design would provide a more efficient and complete catalytic
reaction between the exhaust gas and the oxidation catalyst which coats the strip. Thus, it
is not clear to us how the examiner arrives at his conclusion that such a modification would
provide a more efficient and complete catalytic reaction between an ozone-containing gas
and an ozone-decomposition catalyst. Moreover, it is not clear to us that one of ordinary
skill in the art of ozone converters would be motivated to turn to the art of catalytic
converters for diesel engines to arrive at the claimed invention. On this record, the only
place where we find a suggestion to modify a support for a catalytic converter capable of
destroying ozone with a “plurality of fins arranged in an axial succession of offset fin rows”
to provide a tortuous flow path for gases, is in the appellants’ specification. Thus, we find
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