Appeal No. 2001-0774
Application 09/087,521
could be said that one of ordinary skill in this art would have reasonably used the “vacuum
pump” in the preconditioning system of Heckman to pull the powder from the electrostatic
application station to a recycle hopper and then into the cyclone in the preconditioning system,
the same would not have suggested the arrangement of the apparatus elements required by
appealed claims 1, 2 and 16 in which the powder is pulled from the “powder coating structure”
through the inlet of the “vacuum pump” and then pushed through the outlet thereof into the
“powder accumulator.”
Accordingly, based on this evidence, we agree with appellants (brief, pages 6-17; reply
brief) that the combination of the description of the prior art apparatus in English and the
teachings of Heckman would not have reasonably suggested the claimed apparatus encompassed
by appealed claims 1, 2 and 16 to one of ordinary skill in this art, and thus we reverse all of the
grounds of rejection of record in the final rejection with respect to appealed claims 1 through 13,
15 through 17 and 20 through 23.5
Turning now to appealed claim 25, the examiner bases the rejection on the combined
teachings of Koch, English and Heckman. The examiner finds that Koch (col. 2, lines 29-41, and
FIG. 3) does not teach that (1) “the dust collector [37] is a cyclone housing,” (2) the “transferred
powder is airborne” in conduit 24, and (3) conveyor elements 39, 34 and 20 constitute “a
conveyor operative” as required by the appealed claim. The examiner states that “[c]yclones are
notoriously well known as conventional powder (i.e., dust) collectors,” pointing to cyclone 55 of
Heckman as an example. The examiner further contends that the use of vacuum to transport
powder in conduit 24 would have been suggested by the use of vacuum in the acknowledged
prior art system described in English, and the conveyor elements of the apparatus shown in
English FIG. 1 and described at col. 4 of that reference would have suggested an arrangement of
apparatus elements for the claimed “conveyor operative” with respect to the “new powder
feeder,” the “powder reclaim feeder” and the “powder coating structure” (answer, pages 24-25).
Appellants do not contest the examiner’s finding that a cyclone would be considered by
one of ordinary skill in this art to be a “dust collector,” and thus, we accept the examiner’s
5 A discussion of Kock and Weaver is not necessary to our decision with respect to these three
grounds of rejection
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