Appeal No. 1998-3016
Application No. 08/568,344
element being in communication with each of these passages.
The examiner’s position is that Briggs is applied as in
the rejection of claim 1 and further that "applicant's
disclosure makes it clear that the instant invention lies
within the use of a rubber coated metal flange within a
separator apparatus and not specifically with the structure of
the base member (10), which is notoriously well known within
the art" (the final rejection, Paper No. 10, page 6).
The examiner's rejection with regard to claims 10 and 11
as being unpatentable over Briggs taken in view of the general
state of the art, will not be sustained because, in our view,
the combined teachings of Briggs and the general state of the
art fail to disclose or suggest a base member with two
passages in communication with the coalescer element as
recited in claims 10 and 11.
With respect to the examiner's comments regarding the
general state of the art, we note appellants' statement that,
[I]n the Amendment filed March 18, 1997
Appellant added claims 10 and 11, including
recitations specifically directed to the
structure of the base member. At that time, the
Examiner was clearly put on notice that
Appellant considered the structure of the base
11
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