Appeal 2006-1068
Reissue Application 08/425,766
was rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over prior art patents to
Hadley and to Kent. Via a paper filed August 19, 1991, the Appellants responded
to this rejection with arguments which include the following:
Not only does Hadley ‘652 fail to teach or suggest either the first and
second combustion means of Claims 1 - 14 and 22 - 25, Hadley also fails to
teach or mention a liquid filter arrangement as described and claimed by
Applicants. Hadley only demonstrates use of a conventional baghouse 20
which performs just a part of the function of Applicants’ liquid filter –-
apparently some particulate matter is captured in the baghouse –- there is no
mention or suggestion of a chemical treatment to reduce the quantity of CO,
NO, SO, HCL or SO2 as is required by the Claims of Applicants’ invention.
[Id., page 3.]
. . . .
Finally, Kent shows a cooling and neutralizing tower that the
Examiner suggests meets the limitation of Applicants’ invention for a liquid
filter. Applicants respectfully submit that the cooling and neutralizing tower
of Kent is entirely different and serves a completely separate purpose from
the “liquid filter” of Claims 1 - 14 and the “liquid means” of Claims 22 - 25.
In Claims 1 - 14, the liquid filter is for “capturing particulate matter
contained in said fire exhaust and for chemically treating said exhaust to
reduce the quantity of CO, NO and SO” while in Claims 22 - 25, the liquid
means is for “capturing particulate matter . . . and for chemically treating
said fired exhaust to reduce CO, NO, HCL and SO2.” Nothing in the cooling
and neutralizing tower of Kent meets these two limitations. To the contrary,
in his disclosure beginning at Col. 6, line 59, Kent states that the purpose of
the cooling tower is simply to cool the fired exhaust to reduce the
temperature of the particulate matter. Nothing in Kent suggests that he adds
anything other than water or that any other chemical reaction is taking place.
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