Appeal No. 96-0776
Application 07/953,539
basic teachings. Booth was added for its disclosure of copper as
a desired seal material, but it does not alleviate the
shortcomings of the other two references. Thus, a prima facie
case of obviousness has not been made, and we will not sustain
this rejection.
Claim 17 is an independent claim which stands rejected on
the basis of Spinner, Booth and Bellis. Among its requirements
are the "separable" and "removable" limitations discussed above
and, as was the case above, the teachings extracted from each
reference for the combination proposed by the examiner fail to
meet the terms of claim 17, for the same reasons. There is no
prima facie case, and this rejection is not sustained.
Claims 1 through 5, 10 through 12 and 14 have been rejected
as being unpatentable over Booth in view of Bellis, it being the
examiner's position that it would have been obvious to relocate
the seal of Booth from its disclosed position in a groove in the
outer part to a gap between the outer part and the inner part, in
view of the teachings of Bellis. We initially note here that in
the Booth seal there is no gap between the inner and the outer
parts, much less sealing means located within that gap. It is
our view that to modify the Booth construction in the manner
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