Appeal No. 1998-2242
Application No. 08/430,937
been argued or treated by the appellant, in any way, in the
appeal brief.
With respect to claims 4, 5 and 6, we do not affirm the
anticipation rejection of these claims, inasmuch as
DiNicolantonio does not show a ripple tray, the manway tray
being circular, or having baffle means. With respect to claim
14, DiNicolantonio does not disclose a method wherein there
are no supporting beams for any of the trays.1
As to claims 17 and 18, DiNicolantonio does not disclose
this claimed process of retrofitting existing process columns.
Therefore, the rejection of claims 17 and 18 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102 is not sustained.
Turning to the obviousness rejections, whether based on
DiNicolantonio and the admitted prior art in view of Thrift or
based on DiNicolantonio, the admitted prior art, Thrift, Kohn
and Matsumoto all taken together, we will not sustain these
1We note that claim 14 refers to “said trays.” However,
only one tray has been positively recited previously in this
claim’s chain of dependency. This minor error should be
corrected in any further prosecution before the examiner.
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