Appeal No. 1996-1897
Application 08/064,145
“ribs or webs” can be arranged around an irregularly contoured metal workpiece as required to hold
that workpiece in a desired position on a machine tool or tools for processing. Thus, we find that one
of ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably arrived at the configuration of “ribs” and “webs”
specified in appealed claims 12, 13, 20, 23 and 25 through 29 through the routine experimentation
involved with arranging an enclosure around an irregularly contoured metal workpiece to facilitate the
manipulation thereof with respect to chucking, that is, holding the same in one or more machine tools in
the desired orientation for processing as shown by the combined teachings of the applied references.
Accordingly, we agree with the examiner (answer, pages 3-4) that the principal issue in
determining the patentability of the claimed invention encompassed by appealed claims 12, 13, 20, 23
and 25 through 29 with respect to the combined teachings of Mushardt and Wendt is whether one of
ordinary skill in this art would have made the workpiece enclosure from “a plastic material,” such as a
“thermoplastic,” which terms we have construed above to encompass a polymer material that contains
reinforcing fillers. In this respect, we further agree with the examiner, that Wendt would have
reasonably suggested to one of ordinary skill in this art that, compared to the metal enclosures of
Mushardt, the polymeric material disclosed in Wendt will form the enclosure at a lower temperature
and can be removed from the workpiece by cooling without the use of break points and special tools
(answer, page 4).
Indeed, Wendt discloses that such advantages are obtained when the workpiece enclosure is
prepared from a “synthetic plastic material and a filler which is distributed in the synthetic plastic
material,” wherein the plastic material can be “styrene, an ester, an epoxy resin or an acrylate” (page 2,
lines 40-59; emphasis supplied). We find that one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized
that the plastic materials listed in Wendt are all flammable and are useful in engineering applications as
seen from the definition of “plastic” that we set forth above. Wendt teaches that the plastic material
containing the reinforcing filler provides the workpiece enclosure with a “stability” that is “at least as
satisfactory as that of blocks which are made of” metal such as that used by Mushardt (e.g., page 3,
lines 45-60, and page 4, lines 25-47); that such plastic material is used to prepare the workpiece
enclosure by injection molding and will shrink to conform to the shape of the workpiece during
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