Appeal No. 1999-0060
Application No. 08/567,771
appellants acknowledge, included one or more discharge ports,
connected to a valve in the condenser outlet line, for collecting
and/or recirculating condensate (specification, page 1, lines
33-35; figure 6, item 640).
The appellants do not acknowledge that it was known in the
art to connect to these discharge ports one or more tanks,
wherein 1) either the sole tank is connected to the evaporation
tank and is capable of both collecting a purified component from
the condenser and, during at least one different time period,
receiving at least one transition mixture from the condenser for
recirculation to the evaporation tank in a subsequent
distillation cycle, or 2) there are two tanks connected to the
ports, each of the tanks being capable of performing one of these
functions, the tank capable of receiving the transition mixture
being connected to the evaporation tank.
We remand the application to the examiner for the examiner
to determine whether the prior art would have fairly suggested
the one or two tanks to one of ordinary skill in the art.
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