Appeal 2006-2404
Application 10/884,619
contradicted by Appellant’s arguments concerning what the “invention” is in
this application (Br. 5-7), as well as Appellant’s previous remarks (see the
Paper dated Oct. 17, 2003) and the original specification and claims.
Furthermore, Appellant discloses that the “concept” recited by claim 7,
namely operating a packed tower counter-current stripper under a total
pressure of 100 to 200 millibars, was known (Specification 7, ll. 12-14).
Accordingly, the evidence on this record establishes that Appellant has
indicated that he intends claim 7 to be of a different scope. Therefore, the
rejection of claim 7 under § 112, second paragraph, is AFFIRMED.
B. The Rejection under § 103(a)
The Examiner finds that Wasinger teaches air stripping of MTBE
from groundwater but fails to disclose the use of “open spherical balls
having internal ribs” as packing (Answer 2). The Examiner relies on the
AAPA at pages 6-7 of the specification for the teaching of employing Jaeger
Tri-Packs as packing in the environmental field to achieve high removal
efficiencies (Answer 3). From these findings, the Examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in this art at the time of the
invention to employ column packing materials that were “the standard in the
U.S. environmental field” when stripping MTBE from contaminated
groundwater in the process of Wasinger in order to obtain very high removal
efficiencies and to avoid the known problem of “bridging” (id).
Appellant argues that Wasinger not only fails to disclose the claimed
open spherical balls having internal ribs but does not employ the claimed
method of counter-current air stripping and further requires the use of ozone
as a necessary constituent in removing MTBE from water (Br. 8). Appellant
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