Appeal No. 2005-2005
Application 10/273,845
Claims 1 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over WO 98/52197, PCT application published
November 19, 1998 (copy attached). The specification describes
WO 98/52197 on pages 1 to 2 as a power transmission cable with an
outer coating of expanded polymer material and a flexural modulus
of between 400 MPa and 1800 MPa. The material is expensive but
its weight is lower compared to the not expanded version. It is
stated (spec. at 1-2): "But for the purpose of impact protection
the coating of expanded polymer material needs an adequate
thickness and flexural modulus together with a great mass.
Therefrom the weight of the sheath still is high. WO 98/52197
also mentions documents which describe cables for the
transmission of signals with a layer of expanded insulating
material. Such a material shall be usefull [sic] only for the
increase of the transmission speed of the signals." The
discussion that cables having sheaths of expanded material were
known in WO 98/52197 raises questions of patentability that we
feel are best addressed in the context of a rejection.
WO 98/52197 is concerned with impact protection and a
relatively high flexural modulus, "measured before its expansion"
(page 6, line 22), is necessary. The modulus before expansion is
higher than 200 MPa (page 7, lines 25-26; page 16, lines 29-30)
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