Appeal No. 1997-2954
Application No. 08/401,876
With the above teachings as a basis, the examiner
concluded that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
incorporate a heater and metal sample tray into the device of
Stone as taught by Chlosta and to use the device to sample
headspace gases as taught by Otson because it is well known in
the art that heating the sampler prior to sampling decreases
the sampling time significantly. The examiner further
contended that it is well known in the art to use aluminum as
a heat conducting metal as a turntable to hold sample
containers. The examiner also contended that it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use a
lifting means such as the lifting member of Lorch and
incorporate a sample holding area such as taught by Chlosta or
Lorch into the Stone device to allow sampling of the vials to
occur at the same time as loading of the vials. Further, the
examiner concluded that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made
to incorporate an agitation step during heating as taught by
Natelson or Yamano, using the motion of Fujitsuka, into the
Stone device to facilitate thorough mixing of the sample.
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