Appeal No. 2001-0774
Application 09/087,521
the two purposes claimed to be served by the “vacuum pump” in appealed claim 1, i.e., powder
cloud formation in the fluidized bed and airborne powder transport, are shown to be attributes of
a fluidized bed to which a vacuum has been applied in English (e.g., col. 1, lines 19-22 and
30-33).
The examiner further relies on the disclosure of a “recycle hopper” in Heckman,
acknowledging that the reference does not show the powder recycle hopper (col. 4, line 67, to
col. 5, line 2), and alleging that the reference teaches the collection of powder from that hopper
with apparatus elements in a system which preconditions new powder, combines the same with
the recycle powder and conveys the combined powders to an electrostatic application station, the
details of the electrostatic application system being otherwise unspecified (answer, e.g., pages 5
and 10). The examiner further relies on the apparatus elements including an aspirator used to
withdraw powder from the drying fluidized bed apparatus of the preconditioning system to
demonstrate the use of certain claim elements (id., pages 5-6). Appellants submit that Heckman
teaches a “supply side,” powder reconditioning system and does not teach “a powder
accumulator for collecting excess powder from a powder coating structure during a powder
coating operation” (brief, page 8).
We agree with appellants because we find that one of ordinary skill in this art would have
reasonably inferred from col. 1 of Heckman that the preconditioning of the new powder is for the
purpose of supplying the same to an “electrostatic spray nozzle,” which involves the same
principal but is not the same application method as applying the powder with an electrostatic
fluidized bed, and there is no teaching from which one of ordinary skill in this art could have
reasonably inferred any apparatus elements for transporting powder from an electrostatic spray
nozzle application station to a “recycle hopper.” Indeed, Heckman would have taught one of
ordinary skill in this art only that “excess powder from the electrostatic application is recovered
as “a vacuum pump communicating between the powder coating structure,” including the typical
elements as claimed and described at page 5, lines 14-18, “and the powder accumulator,” which
is a collector including filters that can be internally pulsed to drop the powder into a reclaim
hopper, wherein a “powder conveying structure” returns the reclaimed powder from the “powder
accumulator” to the “powder coating structure.” The problems alleged for the acknowledged
“typical” apparatus include the inability to adjust the vacuum and the “pulsable filter within the
collector is rather cumbersome” (id., page 3, line 22, to page 4, line 14).
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