Appeal No. 1997-2105
Application No. 08/426,160
The prior set forth below is relied upon by the examiner
as evidence of obviousness:
Bridgeford 3,502,547 Mar. 24, 1970
Sampath et al. (Sampath) 5,326,436 Jul.
5, 1994
The admitted prior art shown in Figure 1 of the appellant’s
drawing
All of the appealed claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over the admitted prior art in
view of Sampath with or without Bridgeford.
OPINION
We cannot sustain this rejection.
We agree with the appellant that the Sampath and
Bridgeford references contain no teaching or suggestion of
providing the admitted prior art fractionator with a
separation tray and downpipe at a location between the bottoms
liquid hold-up pool and the vapor feed contacting zone as
required by the independent claims on appeal. Neither of
these patents discloses and would not have suggested a
separation and downpipe of the type and at the location
claimed by the appellant. Indeed, the arrangements shown in
these patents, such as the trough/baffle arrangement of
Sampath and the plate/downpipe arrangement of Bridgeford, are
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