Appeal No. 2001-0379
Application No. 09/141,891 Page 6
apparatus to suit particular design requirements. The examiner
additionally asserts (id.) that it would be a matter of routine
experimentation to arrive at any particular flow rate.
Appellant asserts (brief, page 8) that Cox does not teach an
air pump that has an inlet connected to an outlet of a combustion
chamber, and does not teach flowing a combustible gas through the
chamber at a speed not less than 5 meter/second. It is further
argued (brief, page 11) that neither reference teaches sensing a
temperature rise of at least 10/C by a temperature sensor when
the flammable gas is ignited. Appellant further asserts (brief,
page 12) that “the high flow speed of at least 5 meter/second of
the gas mixture into a reaction chamber is what enables the
present invention method to detect flammable gas in a very rapid
manner. Such criticality of the present invention has been
clearly shown by the Appellant and is clearly not a matter of
routine experimentation to arrive at.”
We observe at the outset that appellant does not argue the
combinability of the references, but rather argues that the
combined teachings of Kern and Cox would not result in the
claimed invention. From our review of Kern and Cox, we find that
neither reference teaches “an air pump having an inlet connected
to the outlet of said chamber such that said inlet of the air
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