Appeal No. 2002-0064
Application No. 09/084,042
environments and systems as the claimed device and operate in the
same fashion as appellant’s claimed device is, at best,
speculative.
In light of the above, we consider that the preamble
recitation “regenerator” in claim 1 is a limitation on the
claimed subject matter, and that Pauletta does not meet this
limitation. Accordingly, we will not sustain the standing
rejection of claim 1 as being anticipated by Pauletta.
II. The obviousness rejection of claims 2-5
Claims 2-5 depend from claim 1 and add that the two edges of
a layer of the foil meet each other in an unbonded butt joint
(claim 2), that the two edges of a layer of the foil meet each
other in an open joint (claim 3), that two edges of a layer of
the foil meet each other in an unbonded butt joint and that two
edges of a different layer of foil approach each other in an open
joint (claim 4), and that each layer of foil has a joint that is
radially offset from the joint in an adjacent layer (claim 5).
In rejecting these claims, the examiner has taken the
position (answer, page 4) that these additional claim limitations
“are considered to be . . . obvious design expedients . . . which
do not solve any stated problem or produce any new and/or
unexpected result.”
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