Appeal No. 2004-0407
Application No. 09/062,053
exposes the mash to dearation under vacuum which necessarily
results in the stripping of some volatile compounds (essence)
from the mash and loss of this essence to the atmosphere.
Appellants’ argument fails since there is no evidence that
the dearation step of Sommi, which is performed at room
temperature, would degrade the quality of essence to a
significant extent, if at all. Moreover, the examiner suggests
that dearation may actually enhance the overall quality of
essence by minimizing oxidation of these volatile components of
the mash during subsequent heating steps.
With regard to independent claim 24, appellants additionally
argue that the Sommi vapor separators do not include “mass
transfer devices.” In our opinion, it would have been prima
facie obvious, within the purview of 35 U.S.C. § 103, to equip
those vapor separators with well known mass transfer devices,
e.g., fractional distillation trays or packing, in order to
promote contact and separation of phases in the vessels. In this
regard, we note that Sommi shows the use of conventional
fractional distillation trays for this purpose, albeit installed
in a separate vessel (Sommi: col. 4, l. 65-col. 5, l. 1).
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