Appeal No. 1999-0046
Application No. 08/442,103
would appear to fundamentally alter the way in which
Meijburg’s heat exchanger operates for no apparent reason
other than to meet the terms of the claims. In this regard,
the examiner’s observation that Meijburg and AP are both from
the same field of endeavor (presumably, heat exchangers) does
not suffice as a reason for indiscriminately “employing”
features of one in the other without regard for the
consequences that would result. Further, an objective of
Meijburg is to provide a heat exchanger that may be operated
at a lower capacity at certain times (column 1, lines 36-55).
To this end, Meijburg’s heat exchanger is provided with a
valve arrangement in the inlet manifold that bypasses certain
of the tubes 8 to shorten the heat exchange flow path of the
medium to be heated (column 2, lines 54-60). It appears to us
that providing a network of distribution canals of the type
disclosed by AP in Meijburg would render Meijburg’s bypass
arrangement, at best, unsuitable for its intended function,
thus presenting a strong disincentive to the sort of
modification proposed by the examiner. Under these
circumstances, it cannot be said that the proposed
modification of Meijburg in view of AP would have been obvious
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