Appeal No. 1997-3785
Application No. 08/527,591
which would not have led one of ordinary skill in the art
toward the appellants’ claimed invention. The appellants’
claims require raising the temperature of the clean gases that
exit the treatment device prior to their being used to purge.
This is not the case in Cmejrek. While Cmejrek apparently
appreciates that high temperature is desirable for purging, it
does achieve this by raising the temperature of the gases
prior to entering the device to be purged, but teaches
maintaining the temperature of these gases during the purging
process. That is, in purging the hot side of a heat
exchanger, Cmejrek suspends the transfer of heat from the
purging gas exhausting from a boiler to the cool incoming gas
in the heat exchanger, so that no heat from the clean exhaust
gases is lost and the purging capability of the gas is
maximized. For example, in the embodiment of Figure 1, the
incoming gas is diverted from the heat exchanger and heated by
other means so long as purging is taking place (translation,
pages 8-9). In his system, Cmejrek relies upon using the
entire stream of clean gases to purge, rather than just a
portion. Moreover, the gases are not re-circulated to purge
an element that they have previously passed through, which is
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