Appeal No. 96-2649
Application 08/418,875
507, 510 (CCPA 1966). Although Portal teaches that the rotatable
expander plug or mandrel disclosed therein produces a product
which is superior to that produced by the non-rotating expander
plug or mandrel discussed in the background portion of the
disclosure, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art at the time the invention was made to utilize the non-
rotatable expander plug in the Portal method to produce a lower
grade product.
The foregoing modification of the Portal method also would
meet all of the limitations in parent claim 1. It goes without
saying that the rubbing friction and longitudinal movement of the
non-rotatable expander plug or mandrel would result in non-
elastic forced flow of the tubular workpiece material “in an
axial direction and then in lateral directions” as recited in
claim 1. Also, and notwithstanding the appellant’s arguments to
the contrary (see pages 10 through 12 in the main brief and pages
1 through 3 in the reply brief), Figure 1 of the Portal reference
clearly shows that fins 2 constitute “a plurality of solid
protrusions that are spaced axially of said tubular member and
that are not continuous circumferentially of said tubular member”
as recited in claim 1.
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