Appeal No. 1997-0863
Application 08/456,001
second mixer is greater than the cross-sectional flow area of
the first mixer, or that the cross-sectional flow area of the
second mixer is greater than the cross-sectional flow area of
the first mixer along its entire length.
Appellants have additionally urged (brief, page 17) that
claim 1 on appeal requires the second mixer to have a
plurality of static mixer elements “disposed along a
longitudinal axis thereof,” and that the second mixer in
Miyata lacks such an arrangement because the disks (16, 17)
therein are not mixer elements, but diverter plates, and the
mixing elements of Miyata (small chambers 15) are arranged not
along a longitudinal axis of the second mixer, but laterally
thereto, in a radial direction. We also find this argument to
be unpersuasive. In the first place, given the redirection of
flow created by the unit bodies (14) of the disks (16, 17) as
seen in Figures 1 and 7 of Miyata and the creation of flow
passageways (19) defined by disks (17), we view the plurality
of disks (16, 17) of Miyata as broadly being mixer elements
“disposed along a longitudinal axis” of the second mixer.
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