Appeal No. 1996-4174 Page 8
Application No. 08/134,204
exchanger at each of the inlet and outlet ends of the tubular
reactor with a heat transfer fluid disposed in each heat
exchanger and means for recirculating such heat transfer fluid
between the exchangers.
The examiner correctly recognizes that the heat exchanger
(86, Figure 6) of Binning is constructed to transfer heat
between reactor incoming and effluent streams. According to
the examiner, it would have been obvious to modify Binning to
use conventional tube-in-tube heat exchangers as the
exchangers thereof "...since this has not been shown to be a
result-effective modification" (final rejection, page 3).
However, even if such a modification would have been
obvious, the examiner has not explained how a skilled artisan
would have arrived at the claimed apparatus including
structure corresponding to appellants' claimed means for
recirculating heat transfer fluid between the tube-in-tube
heat exchangers. The burden is on the examiner to establish
that an ordinarily skilled artisan would have been led to
modify the apparatus of Binning in a manner such that the
claimed apparatus would result from such a modification of the
prior art relied upon. This the examiner has not done.
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