Appeal No. 2002-1423 Application No. 09/531,839 applied prior art does not establish the lack of novelty or prima facie obviousness of the claimed subject matter. Accordingly, the rejections of all claims on appeal are reversed. Our reasons follow. Church discloses a respirator for positive pressure forced air supply to the breathing zone of the wearer comprising a headpiece that forms the breathing zone. An air flow passage is provided through which the air passes before entering the breathing zone. The air flow passage has a short cylinder 42 with a restricted orifice 44 at its downstream end. Col. 2, lines 34-43. The orifice serves to increase the pressure in cylinder 42. Col. 2, line 54. This increased pressure is detected by aperture 49 and supply line 48. The increased pressure is sufficient to lift float 54 off of its stop and signal that the requisite amount of air is being supplied. Claim 1 on appeal requires that suction be generated at the flow detecting orifice. The examiner has stated that Church discloses "a pressure differential across the orifice implicit in which is a suction force across the orifice." We find ourselves in agreement with appellant that suction is not the manner in which aperture 44 of Church operates. In fact, Church works by increasing the pressure in cylinder 42 to send a higher pressure 33Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007