Appeal No. 1999-0546
Application No. 08/724,542
separate metal castings containing the sand cores, said
passing being at a speed to maintain individual castings in
the series submerged for a period of time sufficient to
thermally decompose the binder;
whereby sand from the cores, free of binder, flows freely
from the individual casting to assimilate with the fluidized
sand in the furnace bed.
In rejecting the appealed claims under 35 U.S.C. ' 103 as
being unpatentable over Bonnemasou in view of Crofton the
examiner describes each of the prior art teachings, that
Bonnemasou discloses a "method of employing a fluidized bed
furnace to remove sand cores from castings" and Crafton
discloses a "process of continuously passing a plurality of
metal castings containing sand cores through a furnace to
remove the sand cores" before concluding that "[t]o employ a
conveying system in the method disclosed by Bonnemasou et al.
to treat a plurality of metal casting containing sand cores
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art in
view of Crafton et al. to reduce labor and energy costs" (the
final rejection, Paper No. 4, mailed December 2, 1997, page
2). The examiner also points out that "[t]reating a plurality
of metal castings containing sand cores in a continuous manner
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