Appeal No. 97-0612
Application 08/322,218
claim 3 recites an apparatus for forming a continuous flat metal
strip comprising, inter alia, a rotatable wheel having first and
second circumferential grooves, means for feeding rod-like
billets to the grooves, and a die having an opening with a
discontinuous annular cross section such that metal from the
billets flowing through the die is formed into a continuous tube
of circular cross section having a slit formed therein.
The record indicates that appealed claims 1, 2 and 3 are
similar to claims 1, 5 and 7, respectively, in parent Application
07/791,103 (see, for example, page 4 in the appellants’ main
brief). In an earlier appeal involving the parent application
(Appeal No. 93-4301), this Board sustained the examiner’s 35
U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 1, 5 and 7 as being unpatentable
over the combined teachings of Vaughan and Sparks. Method claims
1 and 2 in the present appeal differ from corresponding claims 1
and 5 in the earlier appeal by requiring the slit formed in the
continuous tube of circular cross section to have “curved edges.”
Apparatus claim 3 in the present appeal differs from
corresponding claim 7 in the earlier appeal by requiring the
opening in the die to have “curved ends” so that the edges of the
slit in the continuous tube of circular cross section are
“similarly curved.” The appellants’ specification indicates that
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Last modified: November 3, 2007