Appeal No. 97-0990 Page 7
Application No. 08/105,093
disclosure as a blueprint to reconstruct the claimed invention
from the isolated teachings of the prior art. See, e.g., Grain
Processing Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 840 F.2d 902,
907, 5 USPQ2d 1788, 1792 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
With this as background, we turn to the examiner's
rejections of the claims on appeal.
Claims 1 through 5
Claim 1 recites a seal having an axis A which bounds a
sealing plenum between a first region and a second region, the
seal including a first sealing surface and a second sealing
surface which extend circumferentially about the axis A and which
are spaced radially to form the plenum. The seal comprises,
inter alia, (1) a first seal element which has a C-shaped cross
section, the seal element having a front which is closed and
which faces the first region, a first sidewall extending from the
front to the first sealing surface and a second sidewall
extending from the front to the second sealing surface, (2) a
second seal element means disposed on the interior of the first
seal element for urging the sidewalls apart leaving an opening
therebetween and for urging the sidewalls apart into engagement
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