Appeal No. 97-1242
Application 08/226,521
The respective rejections of claim 1 and claims 2
through 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 are reversed.
We, of course, fully appreciate the examiner’s
assessment of the applied prior art, as well as the manner in
which the examiner proposes that the references be applied.
However, the difficulty that we have with the rejections is that
when we set aside what appellant has disclosed to us in the
present application, it is at once apparent to us that the
applied patents themselves would not have been suggestive of the
invention now claimed.
The Yumoto patent clearly addresses a thermally-
actuated steam trap, acknowledged by appellant (main brief,
page 12) to include a diaphragm member 15, 16 with a wave-like
configuration (Figures 1 and 2). As depicted in Figure 2 of
Yumoto, when the valve member 17 is seated on the valve seat
member 9, the movable diaphragm member 15, 16 engages the
apparently smooth top surface of the bottom member 18.
The examiner proposes to modify the aforementioned
teaching based upon the Stalker patent. This reference relates
to a fluid pressure diaphragm including an inner pressure
containing capsule of relatively light or thin material (discs
4
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