Appeal No. 2003-1066
Application No. 09/841,277
thereby creating a heated radiating hearth surface” as recited
in the appealed claims.2 (Answer, page 4; appeal brief, page 5.)
To account for this difference, the examiner combines the
teachings of the admitted prior art or Bauer with the teachings
of Kniel. Specifically, the examiner held (answer, page 5):
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time appellant’s [sic]
invention was made to have provided flat horizontally
firing burners in addition to the hearth burners on
the hearth for creating a radiating hearth surface in
appellant’s [sic] admitted prior art or Bauer et al.
in order to avoid flame impingement on the heating
coil and produce a more uniform heating environment as
taught by Kniel...
We disagree. The examiner’s conclusion is based on Kniel’s
teachings (page 132) concerning “a uniformly radiating wall”
(emphasis added). (Answer, page 4.) While the examiner argues
(answer, page 7) that “it is easily construed by one of ordinary
skill in the art that the term ‘wall’ can generally be accepted
as any surface which is attached to the burner, including a
horizontal surface,” no evidence has been cited to support such
an argument.
Contrary to the examiner’s allegation, Kniel distinguishes
wall burners from floor burners. In Kniel’s Figure 36 (page
2 The present specification states that the “base burners”
fire horizontally across the floor in order to heat the floor of
the radiant heating zone so that the floor itself becomes a
4
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