Appeal No. 2001-0370
Application No. 08/978,991
The examiner found that:
Duty et al disclose that the embodiment of Fig. 11 is
used when a flue gas stream is heavily laden with
contaminates and the flow is subject to high flue
pressure. One having ordinary skill in the art, given
such a fact situation in the depiction of Fig. 11,
which shows the perforated deflectors without
adsorbent, would recognize that the apparatus as
disclosed by Fig. 11 of the reference (without
adsorbent) would allow for intense scrubbing of the
high pressure, highly contaminated stream by increased
liquid flow, without suffering from the inherent
increase in pressure drop along the passage due to the
inclusion of an unnecessary adsorbent layer
Examiner’s Answer, page 3-4. Based on our review of Duty, we are
unable to find any support in the examiner’s contention that
figure 11 represents an embodiment which differs from figure 2 in
that it does not include activated adsorbent. Rather, we are in
complete agreement with appellant that “the adsorbent ‘appears to
be essential’ to the invention.” Appeal Brief, page 15. In
reviewing the description of the drawings, we note that figure 11
is identified as a schematic view “of an embodiment of the
apparatus of the invention in which a fourth baffle element, a
third peripheral deflector skirt and a third array of spray
nozzles are employed.” There is absolutely no indication that
this embodiment does not include an adsorbent material. It is
this additional baffle element, deflector skirt and spray nozzle
array which are utilized to achieve the intense scrubbing of a
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