Appeal No. 1996-2959
Application 08/399,853
of said plurality of channels being disposed between said support
and said scanning section, at least some of said plurality of
channels being arranged to define an angle, not equal to zero,
formed between said flow axis and said scanning section line,”
and independent claim 17 recites a detecting device wherein
said scanning section being disposed facing said
support with at least a portion of each of said
plurality of channels being disposed between said
support and said scanning section, at least some of
said plurality of channels being arranged to define an
angle, not equal to zero, formed between said flow axis
and said scanning section line.
The appellants’ specification (see pages 3 through 5)
explains that the foregoing structural relationships are
advantageous in that they permit a time efficient and low cost
evaluation of a gas mixture.
May and Stark disclose detecting devices generally
comparable to that defined by the appealed claims in that each
includes a support, channels and a scanning device. In applying
these references to reject independent claims 1, 9 and 17, the
examiner states that
[t]he cited prior art is silent to the claimed
radial arrangement of the channels such that the angle
between two adjacent channels is not equal to zero
. . . .
One having ordinary skill in the art would have
recognized that it would have been desirable to orient
the channels such that an efficient sampling of the gas
could occur. The channels of the cited prior art
5
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