Appeal No. 1998-1133
Application 08/382,296
of an engine, and opens increasingly as soon as the catalyst
in a downstream main catalytic unit (4) reaches its response
temperature (col. 1, lines 15-19; col. 2, lines 55-58 and 66-
70; col. 3, lines 66-71; col. 4, lines 18-23; col. 4, line 73
- col. 5, line 3). Thus, Säufferer’s system is capable of
bypassing the quick-warm-up catalytic unit only after the main
catalytic unit reaches its ignition temperature, not
beforehand as required by the appellants’ claim 21.
The examiner interprets “ignition” in view of the
appellants’ specification as being the condition at which the
exhaust gases about to enter the downstream catalytic unit are
at about 700EK (427EC) (answer, page 7). The examiner relies
(answer, page 7) upon statements in the appellants’
specification that the exhaust gases are heated such that they
are at a temperature of 700EK at the catalytic converter inlet
(page 4, lines 1-4; page 6, lines 20-25; page 7, lines 2-5).
The examiner argues that the catalytic converter response
temperatures disclosed by Dunne and Säufferer of,
respectively, 300EC (col. 1, lines 31-33) and 250-300EC (col.
3, lines 5-9), are below 700EK and that, therefore, Dunne and
Säufferer bypass the upstream catalytic unit at a temperature
6
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