Appeal No. 2001-0065
Application 09/048,289
13-14 and claim 16)), we do not find this difference sufficient to render the combination
improper.
Both Ahs and Manbro are concerned with the treatment and disposition of shives
in a chemical pulp process, and utilize a recirculating loop arrangement to accomplish
this disposition. The fact that Mannbro may relate to a high consistency delignification
process does not lead one of skill in the art away from the combination, as it is not the
particular delignification process that is the central issue to one of skill in the art. While
high consistency and medium consistency delignification may be different, the
remainder of the disclosed structure and processes are nearly identical. Furthermore,
in Mannbro the pulp is pressed in only stage 8, and rediluted before being screened in
stage 10.
Thus, the pulp is only of high consistency for a very small portion of its journey
through the Ahs apparatus (the reactor) and at one of skill in the art would be familiar
with presses and redilution to adjust as necessary to engineer a plant.
The Appellants also further criticize the Mannbro reference, stating “Also the
Mannbro reference does not teach circulating a reject fraction upstream of an oxygen
reactor, as is recited in claim 1” (Appeal Brief, page 9, lines 10 – 11). In support of this
statement, the Appellants assert a lack of clarity and state that:
Mannbro teaches in figure 1 and in column 1, lines 42 through 55, that chemical
pulp passes through a press 8 and an oxygen reactor and then is diluted and
passes to a screen 10. A line is shown in figure 1 of Mannbro leading from the
screen 10 back through a valve to the press 8. No description is provided of
what that line is, why a valve is there, etc. However, it appears from column 5,
lines 51 through 54, that knot cores, bark, etc. are rejected from the system.
That is that the course rejects, which would include shives, are completely
discharged from the system and not used in any other way. The fine impurities,
such as stickies, appear to be returned to the main line of the process. It is
believed that in line 50 of column 5 of Mannbro that several screening steps are
8
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