Appeal No. 2002-1102
Application No. 09/329,591
appellants state that they “hereby cancel Claim 20.”1 We will
treat this statement as a withdrawal of claim 20 from the subject
appeal. As a consequence, only claims 10 and 13-17 remain before
us on this appeal.
The subject matter on appeal relates to a PCB decomposing
apparatus comprising a primary reactor, a secondary reactor, pH
detecting means, sodium hydroxide supply means and control means
for controlling an amount of sodium hydroxide to be supplied
corresponding to a pH value detected by the pH detecting means.
Further details of this appealed subject matter are set forth in
representative independent claim 10 which reads as follows:
10. A PCB decomposing apparatus comprising:
a PCB extracting container for extracting PCB from a PCB
containing material with an organic solvent;
a distilling tower for distilling an extracted solution
introduced from the PCB extracting container, thereby separating
the PCB from the organic solvent;
a primary reactor including a container for receiving a PCB-
containing fluid separated from the distilling tower, a nozzle
for introducing aqueous sodium carbonate solution into the
container for decomposing the PCB, and a nozzle for introducing
an oxidizing agent;
1
1 This attempt by the appellants to cancel claim 20 has not
been effective since the claim cancellation should have been
filed as a separate paper rather than as part of the brief. See
37 CFR § 1.4(c)(2001). Also see the Manual of Patent Examining
Procedure (MPEP) § 1207 (8th ed., Aug. 2001).
2
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