Appeal No. 2002-0064
Application No. 09/084,042
way of their dependence from claim 1, thereby providing an
additional reason for not sustaining the standing rejection of
claims 2-5 based on Pauletta.
III. The obviousness rejection of claims 6-12
Claims 6 and 7 depend from claim 1 and claim the regenerator
of claim 1 in combination with, respectively, a gas cycle machine
equipped with a displacer, and a coaxial pulse tube refrigerator.
Claims 8 and 9 depend from claim 1 and add that the regenerator
includes, respectively, a generally cylindrical tube disposed
inside the innermost layer of foil, and a solid plug disposed
inside the innermost layer of foil.
Independent claim 10 reads as follows:
10. In a coaxial pulse tube refrigerator, an improvement
comprising a plurality of concentric foil layers wherein
outer foil layers are regenerator foil and inner foil layers
are smooth foil.
Pauletta, the primary reference in the examiner’s rejection
of claims 6-10, has been discussed above. Yaron pertains to
compact, high efficiency foil regenerators for use in
regenerative gas cycle (e.g.[,] Stirling cycle,
Ericsson cycle, Vuilleumier cycle, Gifford-McMahon
cycle, Sibling Cycle and similar) cryocoolers, heat
engines, refrigerators and heat pumps. Very thin foil
us [sic, is] formed in patterns of slits and slots that
produce highly efficient regenerators when the foil is
stacked in layers as by rolling it upon itself.
[Abstract.]
11
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