Appeal No. 2000-1517
Application 08/850,470
by Yamaguchi in the Whalley et al device to prevent
the encapsulant from flowing to regions of the
electronic equipment that need to be left exposed.
Furthermore, since the applicant [sic] discloses
that the material of the integral sealing member is
a silicone . . . which meets the limitations of
lines 11-19 [in claim 1 setting forth the
mechanical, physical and thermal characteristics of
the sealing member], it will therefore be tantamount
to conclude that the silicone material disclosed in
the Yamaguchi device meets the same limitations
[answer, pages 4 and 5].
As persuasively argued by the appellants, however, the
examiner’s analysis is fundamentally flawed in at least three
areas.
To begin with, the examiner’s finding that Whalley’s
spacer 15 constitutes a sealing material/member which seals a
component (device 1) to its housing (sheet 9) around an access
hole (hole 10) to prevent flow of encapsulating material
therethrough as recited in claim 1 has no factual support in
the Whalley reference. The flow of Whalley’s encapsulating
material is
controlled by capillary action. There is nothing in the
reference which indicates that the spacer 15 seals the device
1 to the sheet 9, or is even capable of doing so, to prevent
the flow of encapsulating material through the hole 10.
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