Appeal No. 1999-1254
Application No. 08/820,490
prior art itself would appear to have suggested the claimed
subject matter to a person of ordinary skill in the art. In
re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783, 26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir.
1993). Patentability of a claim under 35 U.S.C. § 103 must be
premised upon considering the subject matter of a claim "as a
whole." As recently stated in Pro-Mold & Tool Co. v. Great
Lakes Plastics, Inc., 75 F.3d 1568, 1573, 37 USPQ2d 1626, 1629
(Fed. Cir. 1996), "[i]t is well-established that before a
conclusion of obviousness may be made based on a combination
of references, there must have been a reason, suggestion, or
motivation to lead an inventor to combine those references."
With this as background, we analyze the prior art applied by
the examiner in the rejection of the claims on appeal.
Weyand discloses a method of removing mercury from soil
and industrial wastes using a furnace that vaporizes the
mercury and condenses the vapors to thereby collect mercury
condensate. See Weyand Abstract. First, mercury waste is
heated and maintained in the range of 600-1500°F in order to
vaporize the mercury portion of the waste. The vapor is then
condensed to substantially elemental mercury or mercury
compounds and collected in a single condenser.
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