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Application of Hans Koch and Hans-Peter Ackermann

363 F.2d 899, 53 C.C.P.A. 1484
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedAugust 4, 1966
DocketPatent Appeal 7635
StatusPublished

This text of 363 F.2d 899 (Application of Hans Koch and Hans-Peter Ackermann) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Customs and Patent Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Application of Hans Koch and Hans-Peter Ackermann, 363 F.2d 899, 53 C.C.P.A. 1484 (ccpa 1966).

Opinion

KIRKPATRICK, Judge.

This is an appeal from the decision of the Board of Appeals which affirmed the examiner’s rejection of apparatus claims 24, 26-28 and 33 and process claims 29, 31 and 32 in appellants’ application 1 entitled “Method and Means for Separating Ribs, ‘Birds’ Eyes’ and Other Heavy Ingredients from Cut Tobacco.”

As its title suggests, the application relates to separation of various undesirable heavy ingredients from light cut tobacco used in the production of cigarettes and the like. Appellants first subject a mixture of light and heavy particles to a mechanical separating action and thereafter to one or more pneumatic separating actions, the classification being on the basis of weight. Claim 24, with appropriate reference numerals to Figure 1 of appellants’ drawings, is illustrative :

24. In a tobacco distributor, an apparatus for separating small and large heavier particles from a mixture of lighter and heavier tobacco particles, comprising feeding means [rollers 4, 5, 6] arranged to form a shower containing a mixture of lighter and heavier particles; mechanical separator means [winnower roll 7] disposed in the path of the shower for projecting the particles fanwise so that the lighter particles form a first stream having a shorter flight span and free of heavier particles [the lighter particles accumulate on conveyor belt 8], and the small and large heavier particles form a second stream having a longer flight span [which stream enters channel 11 containing screw feed 12]; and pneumatic separator means, [“sifting: shafts 14 and/or 216 receive the predominantly heavy particle *900 mix which is transported from channel 11 by means of conveyor 13] sufficiently spaced from said mechanical separator means to permit settling of heavier particles in said second stream and arranged to remove from the second stream at least some lighter particles which might have been entrained with the heavier particles [an ascending stream of air carries lighter particles which may have been entrained in the heavy particle mix to conduit 20].

Appellants also assert that their particular mechanical separator means (the winnower roll illustrated above in Fig. 2) is new. Its nature is reflected in claim 28:

28. As a novel article of manufacture, particularly for separating small and large heavier particles from a mixture containing lighter and heavier tobacco particles, a winnower roll comprising a plurality of adjacent axially parallel peripheral projections each including a substantially radial tobacco projecting surface and a concave guide surface extending from the outer end of its tobacco projecting surface to the inner end of the tobacco projecting surface on an adjacent projection.

The references are:

*901

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363 F.2d 899, 53 C.C.P.A. 1484, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/application-of-hans-koch-and-hans-peter-ackermann-ccpa-1966.