Appeal No. 1998-1009
Application No. 08/656,733
content using a scrubber. See Braun and Bolle in their
entirety. In the scrubber, the lactam content of an upwardly
flowing gas is absorbed in a counter-currently flowing
scrubbing solution and is collected at the bottom of the
scrubber, or a tank in communication with the bottom of the
scrubber, for recovery. See Bolle, column 2, line 45 to
column 3, lines 11 and Braun, column 2, line 30 to column 3,
line 16.
Thus, we are of the view that one of ordinary skill in
the art looking to recover monomeric lactam, as taught by
Braun and Bolle, would not employ the same scrubber to remove
polymer dust as well since to do so would cause contamination
of the desired
lactam with undesired polymer dust. It then follows that
there is no suggestion or motivation whatsoever in Scoggin,
Braun and Bolle to arrive at the claimed subject matter within
the meaning of 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The remaining prior art references of record are relied
upon by the examiner for different purposes. See Answer, page
5
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