Appeal No. 1998-2416
Application 08/586,807
assembly 10 which receives the pre-conditioned air via pipe
16. Todd describes the Figure 7 embodiment relied on by the
examiner as follows:2
In Figure 7, the air or gas pipe 16 leads into a
hood 40 provided with a hinged cover 41 . . . .
The hood 40 encloses the buff unit 42 . . . . The
lower part of the hood 40 extends a suitable
distance along the direction of travel of a conveyor
43 to form the extensions 44 and 45 which have swing
or drop doors 46, 47. This construction provides a
precooling space 48 into which the work pieces 49
are carried by the conveyor 43 on their way to
passage through the buffing operation. Pre-
conditioned air or other gas may be delivered
locally or directly into this cooling space 48 by
way of the pipe 16 and withdrawn by way of the pipea
16 . It will be obvious that the drop doors 46, 47b
open and close automatically as the work pieces pass
through. Since the space 48 may be substantially
closed off from the outside air, by suitable design
of the walls, this construction provides an
approximately closed work chamber and may
advantageously be employed where it is desired to
subject the work piece to special gases other than
normal atmospheric air [page 2, column 1, line 68,
through column 2, line 17].
Independent claim 21 recites a machining location for
machining workpieces comprising, inter alia, a machine tool
and an enclosure. The claim further requires the enclosure to
be “mounted and supported to be separate from an[d]
2Todd’s Figure 7 embodiment is the one most relevant to
the subject matter on appeal.
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