Appeal No. 2003-0659
Application 09/463,540
issue be disclosed, either expressly or under principles of
inherency, in a single prior art reference.” Corning Glass Works
v. Sumitomo Electric, 868 F.2d 1251, 1255-56, 9 USPQ2d 1962, 1965
(Fed. Cir. 1989).
The appellant’s method claim (1) requires a step of
periodically injecting reducing gases in bursts into a narrow
chamber, each burst having sufficient mass and flow rate to fill
the narrow chamber with reducing gases and to displace the
exhaust gases previously present in the narrow chamber without
significantly mixing with those exhaust gases. The appellants’
engine claims (2-9) and claims (10-16) to a system for treating
exhaust gases require a device which is capable of carrying out
that method step.
Alcorn discloses a method and apparatus for removing
nitrogen oxides from a gas stream which can be exhaust gas from
an internal combustion engine (col. 1, lines 23-29). The
apparatus includes two catalytic reactors in series, the first
for oxidizing NO to NO2 and the second for reducing NO2 with
ammonia which is introduced between the reactors (col. 3,
lines 27-31; col. 5, lines 10-26; figure 1). Alcorn teaches that
“ammonia is added to the gas stream through the perforated
3
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