Appeal No. 1998-0387 Application 08/566,192 reply brief or otherwise. We also agree with the examiner that it would have been obvious in view of Marchand to utilize an “array” of tubular heat exchangers, as claimed, instead of Berman’s single tubular heat exchanger. In the rejection, the examiner relied upon Hilger for a teaching that it would have been obvious to vertically arrange the components of the Berman system, i.e., the spray chamber 12, heat exchanger 14, and demister 20. As discussed above, the Hilger patent is nonanalogous art and will not be considered; nevertheless, we conclude that claims 1 and 2 are unpatentable over Berman in view of Marchand. It is fundamental that, during examination proceedings, claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation, and limitations are not to be read into the claims from the specification. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184, 26 USPQ2d 1057, 1059 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Looking at the language of claim 1 with this principle in mind, we note 5Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007