Appeal No. 1999-0546
Application No. 08/724,542
is suggested by Bonnemasou et al. (column 6, lines 5-8), (see
supra text also page 2).
The appellants, in their brief, discuss the differences
between Bonnemasou, Crafton and the claims on appeal. It is
urged that
[w]hen these references are combined, there is no
suggestion of the invention. Rather combining the
references results in castings processed by
Bonnemasou's method that would be moved to a
conveyor belt where the sand would be dislodged
from the casings to fall into a trough in the
lower portion of the furnace, to be collected and
conveyed to a central collection bin, for reuse.
As discussed above this is not Applicant's (sic)
invention (brief, pages 14-15).
At the outset we find that neither Bonnemasou or Crafton
describes treatment of "a series of individual and separate
metal castings" as required in claim 1 and in our opinion this
feature would not result even if the combination of these
prior art references would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art. On this point we agree with the
appellants' above-quoted argument that "[even] when these
references are combined, there is no suggestion of the
invention" (brief, pages 14-15).
Additionally, it is our view that in the present case the
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