Appeal No. 96-3130
Application 08/225,653
the § 102(e) rejection.
Turning now to the rejection of claims 11 and 28 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Piatti in view of Sperry,
it is the examiner's position that:
Sperry discloses that it is known in the art
to provide the configuration described above
including the choke, protuberance, and abrupt
change of direction of the intake passage
(see Fig. 2 wherein 58 is the choke and 60 is
the protuberance). It would have been
obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art
at the time the invention was made to provide
the intake passage of Piatti with the
configuration of the intake passage of
Sperry, in order to increase the speed of air
flow therethrough. [Answer, pages 4 and 5.]
With respect to the question of whether the protuberance 60 in
the intake passage of Sperry enhances the fragmentation and/or
vaporization of the fuel, the examiner's position is that:
the structure of the Sperry reference is so
similar to appellant's that it would
necessarily inherently function in the same
way even though it is recognized that this
result was not intended by Sperry (compare
Fig. 2 of Sperry with Fig. 8 of the instant
application). [Answer, page 8.]
In response to the appellants' arguments that the structure of
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