Appeal No. 96-2535
Application 08/028,473
discussed, supra. Therefore, the rejection of claims 1
through 13 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed, inasmuch as the examiner has not
made out a prima facie case of obviousness.
With regard to the rejection of claims 14, we note that
Obata teaches a mechanical seal with first and second seal
members having mating surfaces for a mutual sliding
engagement. See Obata at, for example, practical Example 1,
page 6 of the translation. Secondly, we note that Plano
discloses that it would have been obvious to make a
polycrystalline diamond surface with a reduce wear
characteristic such as the smooth cauliflower layer, which was
not even tested for its tribological properties, inasmuch as
it was known by those of ordinary skill that the smooth
cauliflower morphology had a reduced resistance to wear.
As stated by appellant on pages 16 and 17 of the Appeal
Brief,
At best, it [the combination of the disclosures of
Obata and Plano] would result in a single layer of
diamond with a cauliflower-like morphology as
disclosed in Plano et al on the seal disclosed in
Obata et al, a structure distinctly different from
what is being claimed by Appellant. In Plano et al,
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