Appeal No. 2006-1228
Application No. 09/802,982
accumulator, as stated in the specification, is integrated into
evaporator 16 (page 12, lines 19-21).
The examiner argues that in claim 12, the first and second
valve systems are not well defined and the anti-return valve is
not upstream of the evaporator (brief, page 4). The examiner’s
mere assertion that the first and second valve systems are not
well defined is not adequate for establishing that the claim
would have been unclear to one of ordinary skill in the art. As
for the anti-return valve, the anti-return valve (42) in figure 3
is in the inlet to the evaporator (16) and, therefore, reasonably
can be considered to be upstream of the evaporator.
For the above reasons we reverse the rejection of claims 2,
8, 9, 11 and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
Rejection of claims 1, 2, 10, 11, 13 and 14
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over Noda in view of Enomoto
Noda discloses a motor vehicle passenger compartment heating
system comprising a loop wherein hot refrigerant from a
compressor (2) passes through a condenser (3) to heat hot water
from the engine (1) before the water passes through heater cores
(13, 23) that heat air entering the passenger compartment, and
the refrigerant that exits the condenser passes through a liquid
tank (4) and an expansion valve (5) and then passes through an
6
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