Appeal No. 1999-0032 Page 7
Application No. 08/525,407
be so oriented as to “direct an airstream substantially
horizontally with respect to the support surface,” whereas in
Guibert the outlet directs the airstream perpendicularly to the
support surface. On the basis of the same reasoning as we
expressed above with regard to claim 20, the rejection of claim
21 is not sustained.
Independent claim 1 has been rejected on the basis of
Guibert in view of Augustine. Claim 1 recites a blower unit
comprising a housing having an inlet at one end and an outlet
at the other end, a support for positioning the housing over a
support surface, a motor and blower to produce an airstream
that passes horizontally out of the housing, a heater element
to heat the airstream, a delivery conduit coupled to the
outlet, and “a swivelable elbow in the delivery conduit
proximate the outlet.” The purpose disclosed by the appellant
for the elbow is noise attenuation (Specification, page 4).
After admitting that Guibert fails to disclose the elbow
required by the claim, the examiner opines that “Augustine
shows that the use of an elbow proximate the outlet is old and
well known in the art . . . [and] the purpose disclosed by
Augustine would have been recognized in the pertinent art of
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