Appeal No. 97-2602
Application 08/422,795
understood this description of the valve disk, particularly when considered in light of prior
U.S. Patent Nos. 4,037,819 and 4,058,290, both of which are discussed in the appellants’
specification.
Although the appellants’ disclosure does not itself define what a perpendicular
angle transported disk is, the discussions of angle transported valve disks in the U.S.
patents cited by the appellants make the meaning reasonably clear. In this regard, the
examiner’s conclusion that “Appellants use the term ‘angle transported’ valve to mean a
rotary valve” (main answer, page 4) is way off the mark and is indicative of a fundamental
misunderstanding of the cited patents. The additional description of the disk as appearing
to be the diagonal cross-section of a round rod is self-explanatory and reasonably clear in
defining the particular shape of the perpendicular angle transported disk, i.e., a disk having
parallel elliptical faces and parallel opposing edges which are at an oblique angle to a line
perpendicular to the elliptical faces. The examiner’s concern that the drawings may be
somewhat ambiguous in showing this shape involves, at most, relatively minor drawing
informalities. While any such informalities would certainly be deserving of appropriate
correction, they have no meaningful bearing on the enablement issue presented in this
appeal.
Thus, the examiner’s determination that the appellants’ disclosure of the valve disk
would not have enabled a person of ordinary skill in the art to make and use the claimed
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