Appeal No. 1996-3491
Application 08/213,347
acknowledged by the examiner, the prior art does not disclose
this feature of the claimed invention, i.e., a step in which
the oxygen concentration is increased in one of the first or
second streams of air. At best, the “secondary reference” to
Luckenbach teaches that one can use as oxygen-containing
regeneration gas either air or oxygen-enriched air (col. 4,
lines 62-64). Such a teaching is not equivalent to increasing
the oxygen concentration of an air stream in response to a
temperature differential.
The examiner argues that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would recognize that the amount of oxygen can be
controlled by “one of two equivalent methods” (examiner’s
answer, page 10). The equivalent methods contemplated by the
examiner are (1) controlling the rate of introduction of air
while maintaining its concentration of oxygen constant and (2)
controlling the concentration of oxygen in the air while
maintaining the rate of air delivery constant. The examiner
has cited no prior art, however, which discloses the control
of an oxygen concentration in an air stream in response to any
process parameter, much less for the purpose recited in the
claimed process. Thus in the record before us, there is no
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