Appeal No. 2003-0806 Page 6
Application No. 09/219,275
17 or from several such containers. The container 17 is put under pressure by a
compressed air duct 18. The tablet batches 9 move from one end of the drum to the
other through the drum’s rotation and the force of gravity, with each batch being
contained in a lower section of the helical groove 7 and being exposed to the spray
from nozzles 14. The coated particles dry almost immediately with the aid of hot air
blown on them from a duct 21. As explained in column 4, lines 55-64 of Martin, the use
of mixing jets (i.e., jets which mix compressed air with the coating solution) offers the
advantage that the air streaming in with particles of solution at the same time removes
any dust which may be adhering to the tablets, so that no foreign substances can
penetrate the film.
Melliger discloses a coating apparatus for coating solid pharmaceutical dosage
forms such as tablets using a coating pan and a motor for rotating the pan. As
illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, several nozzles 66 are arranged within the pan to deliver
a variety of different coating substances, such as talc syrup, color dispersion and
polishing wax. These various substances are delivered to the pan via a plurality of
conduits which are covered by a housing 30 inside the coating pan, with the ends of the
conduits protruding from the housing 30 into the pan. Additionally, a hot air supply is
delivered to the housing 30 via conduit 48. The coating substances are delivered from
the conduits to the pan through nozzles 66 and the hot air passes out of the housing via
vents 55. A preferred form of the nozzles is illustrated in Figure 4 and includes a fluid
outlet port surrounded by an air chamber 68 to which air is supplied via an air inlet port
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