Appeal No. 2004-0539
Application No. 09/921,254
combustion air supply passage (2) of Bury which are relied upon
by the examiner, not fuel lances (7) and nozzles (19) located
within the air supply passage, and further observe that the test
for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary
reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the
primary reference, nor is it that the claimed invention must be
expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather,
the test is what the combined teachings of the references would
have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of appellants' invention. See, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425,
208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In the present case, given the
common goal in both Brazier and Bury of reducing NOX in the flue
gasses, and the specific statement in Bury regarding combining
the two processes of flue gas recycling and staggering of the
supply of fuel gas and combustion air to achieve very low
emissions of NOX, we concur in the examiner's position that the
combined teachings of the applied references would have
reasonably suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art at the
time of appellants' invention adding a fuel gas injector
arrangement like that at (10) of Bury to the burner of Brazier so
as to attain very low NOX emissions resulting from using both
flue gas recycling and fuel gas/combustion air staggering
99
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