Appeal No. 1997-1551
Application No. 08/235,597
subsequently removed by an AElectrostatic Precipitator@. See p. 6A-20, Figure 1.
Opinion
We reverse the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. ' 103 as being unpatentable over Kohl in
view of Steag and appellants= admission, as set forth at pp. 3-5 of September 27, 1996 Examiner=s
Answer. None of the references cited by the examiner teaches or suggests a dry sorbent with a particle
size range larger than approximately 1.0 micron, nor has the examiner made any attempt to account for
that limitation.4
We also reverse the rejection of claims 1-6 under 35 U.S.C. ' 103 as being unpatentable over
Kohl in view of Steag and appellants= admission, further in view of Peterson, as set forth at pp. 5 and 6
of the September 27, 1996 Examiner=s Answer.6
The examiner essentially argues it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at
the time the invention was made to remove SO3 from a flue gas with a dry sorbent step and then remove
SO2 in a wet scrubber step because:
Flue gas is known to have SO3 and SO2, both of which are pollutants to be removed from flue
gas.
The dry sorbent step is known for removing SO3 and the wet scrubber is known for removing
SO2.
The use of both the dry sorbent step and the wet scrubber step on the same flue gas would have
been expected to remove both SO3 and SO2.
The SO3 removal step would have to proceed first because B
6 The examiner refers to claims 1-8, but as discussed above, claims 7 and 8 have been cancelled in an after-final
9
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