Appeal No. 2002-0064
Application No. 09/084,042
heat exchanger in the form of a plurality of concentric tubular
members 16. The walls of the concentric tubular members may be
undulating (column 2, lines 51-58).
In rejecting claim 1 as being anticipated by Pauletta, the
examiner states (answer, page 5) that
there is no claimed structural difference between the
claimed invention and Pauletta . . . . Since the
device of Pauletta meets appellant’s structurally
claimed device, then the device of Pauletta anticipates
the claimed device an [sic, and] can be used in all
[the same] environments and systems as [the] claimed
device and operate in the same fashion as appellant’s
claimed device. . . . [A]ppellant does not claim any
valving or fluid system or the details of any system
into which the claimed device is to [be] employed.
We consider the examiner’s determination that the concentric
tubing members 16 of Pauletta’s heat exchanger correspond to the
elements of claim 1 set forth in the body of the claim to be well
founded.1 However, we do not consider this determination to be
dispositive of the anticipation issue raised in this appeal in
that it does not take into account the effect the preamble
recitation “regenerator” should be given in determining what
subject matter claim 1 encompasses.
1The claim terms “regenerator foil” and “generally
cylindrical space” are defined on page 9 of appellant’s
specification; however, these terms, as so defined, do not appear
to distinguish over the concentric tubing members 16 of
Pauletta’s heat exchanger.
3
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