Appeal No. 2003-1583
Application 09/253,235
without the temperature throughout the metal bath being uniform.
Consequently, this disclosure in JP ‘345 indicates that the metal
bath is isothermal.
The appellants argue that JP ‘345 does not disclose that the
stirrer is disposed adjacent to the side wall for movement within
the vessel to shear dendrites formed on the side wall as required
by claims 33, 36 and 38 (brief, pages 15-19). The JP ‘345
dendrites, the appellants argue, could be formed at the interface
between the molten metal bath and the gas above it, rather than
being formed on the side wall (brief, page 18). Regardless of
whether some dendrites could form at the molten metal/gas
interface, the teaching that the cooling pipes around the vessel
cool the molten metal (page 4) indicates that dendrites are
formed on the cooled vessel wall. JP ‘345 does not indicate that
these dendrites build up on the vessel wall. Thus, the teaching
that the shearing effects of the stirrer crush growing dendrites
(page 6) indicates that the stirrer shears dendrites from the
wall. The similarity of the structures of the apparatus of
JP ‘345 and the appellants, i.e., an elongated stirrer near a
cooled wall (compare the JP ‘345 figure and the appellants’
figure 1), supports this finding.
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