Appeal No. 2000-1300
Application 08/853,581
articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we have made the determinations which follow.
Looking to the examiner's rejection of claims 1, 7, 8, 12,
13 and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Chapman in view of McLoughlin, we note that the examiner is of
the view (final rejection, page 3) that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art “to replace the
Chapman pumps and mixing valve with variable pumps to eliminate
the Chapman mixing valve and because McLoughlin teaches the
equivalence of the two arrangements.” Further insight into the
examiner’s position is provided in the supplemental answer, page
5, where it is indicated that:
It is the examiner’s position that one of ordinary
skill in the automatic fluid ratio control art would
view both references and realize that application of
McLoughlin’s Fig. 1 system would allow him to improve
Chapman by eliminating the distinct mixing valve 32
and instead use only variable speed pumps to control
fluid ratios. This step would clearly simplify
Chapman. While there is no direct teaching of
controlling ratios of gas by controlling liquid pumps
the substitution of variable speed pumps in Chapman
would inherently result in such a system because the
Chapman pumps are pumping liquid. The fact that the
reason for using variable speed pumps in the Chapman
liquid lines is not the same reason that appellant
would do so is irrelevant. It is only sufficient that
a good reason (as seen by one of ordinary skill) exist
either in the references themselves or good
engineering practice. In this case good engineering
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