Appeal No. 2000-1335
Application 09/131,930
peripheral portion of the heat exchanger, through a plurality
of radially extending tubes, and a center hub, the tubes
passing through a fin arrangement” (specification, page 1). A
copy of the appealed claims appears in the appendix to the
appellant’s brief (Paper No. 8).
THE EVIDENCE
The items relied on by the examiner as evidence of
obviousness are:2
Swan 1,965,011 Jul. 3, 1934
Modine 2,055,549 Sep. 29,
1936
Dauvergne 5,284,203 Feb. 8, 1994
Yasuda et al. (Yasuda) 5,307,867 May 3, 1994
Obosu et al. (Obosu) 5,660,230 Aug. 26, 1997
Nomura 5,832,994 Nov. 10, 1998
The item relied on by the appellant as evidence of non-
obviousness is:
An analytical study undertaken by the appellant,
Christian Thomas Gregory, and Dr. Kamal Karimanal
comparing rectangular versus radial flow heat
exchangers. This study was made of record on August
30, 1999 as part of Paper No. 5.
2The appellant spends a good portion of the brief (Paper No. 8) discussing U.S.
Patent No. 2,508,729 to Stein as if it had been, or was going to be, applied to support
a rejection. As pointed out by the examiner in the answer (Paper No. 9, see pages 2 and
8), however, Stein has not even been officially made of record. Inasmuch as this
reference is not applied to support any of the appealed rejections, it has no relevance
thereto and will not be further discussed in this decision. Of course, the examiner is
free to take appropriate action should he ultimately decide that Stein is relevant to
the patentability of the appellant’s claimed invention.
2
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