Appeal No. 2003-1788
Application No. 09/403,081
broadest reasonable meanings in their ordinary usage in the field
of the invention as defined in the specification. Cf. Toro Co.
v. White Consol. Indus., 199 F.3d 1295, 1299, 53 USPQ2d 1065,
1067 (Fed. Cir 1999).
Applying this rule to the claims on appeal, I determine that
the claims are directed to a conventional Claus sulfur process
and apparatus in which multiple nozzles for injecting oxygen-
containing gases are directly fixed to a combustion reactor2
section downstream from a burner. See Jepson process claim 22
and apparatus claim 23. Claim 2, 4 through 11, 13 through 15 and
22 further limit the conventional Claus desulfurization process
by indicating that an afterburning zone is integrated into the
combustion reactor and the oxygen-containing gas is fed at a
particular velocity. There is no requirement that the oxygen-
containing gas be fed to the after- burning zone of the
combustion reactor section of the apparatus.
The majority does not dispute that Gitman teaches a Claus
sulfur apparatus having a burner, a waste-heat boiler and one or
more catalytic reactors. Nor does the majority dispute that
Gitman teaches a Claus sulfur process in which hydrogen sulfide
or a hydrogen-sulfide-containing gas is combusted in the presence
of air in an apparatus having a burner, a waste heat boiler and
one or more catalytic reactors. Rather, the majority argues that
Gitman does not teach placing a multiplicity of nozzles for
injecting an oxygen-containing gas at a combustion reactor
section of the apparatus downstream from a burner. According to
2 According to page 284 of Webster’s II New Riverside
University Dictionary (1994), attached herewith, the term
“combustion” means “[t]he process of burning” or “[a] rapid
chemical change, esp. oxidation, that produces heat and light.”
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