Appeal No. 1996-3626
Application 08/302,155
enter the following new ground of rejection.
Claims 1 through 9 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
112, second paragraph, because it cannot be determined what is
meant by the claim language "maintaining the entrant reactant
gas at a substantially uniform temperature" and "constraining
the reactant gas flow at a dividing streamline".
Appellants' claims are so-called "comprising" claims and
are of considerable scope. As we have noted above,
appellants' invention includes two embodiments by which the
"reactant gas flow" is constrained: (1) by use of an outer
flow of a gas which constrains the inner, reactant gas; and
(2) by use of a fixture whose shape conforms the shape of the
reactant gas to a "dividing streamline". Appellants' method
also requires "maintaining the entrant reactant gas at a
substantially uniform temperature."
According to appellants' disclosure, when the method
utilizes the fixture to conform the shape of the gas to the
"dividing streamline", the uniformity of the gas temperature
is "achieved by controlling the bell temperature using water
cooling 32." However, there is no disclosure in the
appellants' specification with respect to the means by which
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