Appeal No. 1999-1960
Application No. 09/075,631
For these reasons, the standing rejection of the appealed
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, will not be
sustained.
The 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection
The examiner concedes that the solenoid actuated drain
valve of Frantz does not include an electric control circuit
for operating the solenoid in real-time. The examiner
contends, however, that:
[i]t would have been an [sic, a] matter
of design to a person of ordinary skill
in the art at the time the invention was
made to eliminate the time delay of Frantz
et al with the consequent loss [of] the time
delay function in order to operate in
“real-time.” [Final rejection, page 2.]
The examiner further explains this rationale in the
answer
as follows:
One of ordinary skill in the art at the
time the invention was made would have
found it obvious to eliminate the cycled
operation of Frantz et al because elimination
of the cycled operation would result in
the consequent loss of the function of the
cycled operation, namely, minimizing
the loss of air pressure. Therefore,
if one of ordinary skill in the art
is not concerned with the loss of air
pressure, he would have found it obvious
to eliminate the cycled operation.
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