Appeal No. 97-2914
Application No. 08/448,060
The examiner relies upon Cyran to show dry sorbent particles of 140-325 mesh (col. 6, lines
38-46), i.e., 106-45 microns in size, which meets the greater than 1.0 micron limitation
presently claimed.5
Opinion
We reverse the rejection of claims 9-14 under 35 U.S.C. ' 103 as being unpatentable over
Kohl in view of Cyran, Steag, and appellants= admission, as set forth at pp. 4 and 5 of the March 13,
1997 Examiner=s Answer.
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 means is known for removing SO3 and the wet scrubber means is known for
removing SO2.
The use of both the dry sorbent means and the wet scrubber means 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
the wet scrubbing means is not efficient at removing SO3; and
the same gas would have damaged other equipment downstream.
5 The examiner refers to 140 mesh as 1/140 inch (18 microns), but the correct conversion for 140 mesh is
106 microns. The conversion for 325 mesh is 45 microns. See AStandard Test Sieves@, CRC Handbook of
Chemistry and Physics, 63rd ed., 1982, p. F-122.
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