Appeal No. 96-3501
Application No. 08/172,773
molded container, but appellants emphasize the changing the
pressure during a fluorination step “is not at all suggestive
of the welding action currently claimed.” See the brief at
page 4, lines 21 and 22.
Based on the disclosure in Giese at column 4, lines 3-28,
it may be somewhat speculative to argue, as the examiner has
in the answer at page 6, that increasing and decreasing the
pressure during the conventional fluorination step would
inherently lead to “some degree of enhanced intermingling as
claimed.” The examiner’s broader finding, however, that
Giese and Ufer show that “pressurization/depressurization
steps” are “conventional in enhancing the blow molding of
thermoplastic articles” (answer, page 4) is factually
supported in Geise at column 7, line 52 to column 8, line 17
which indicates that plastic components to be mounted to the
inner surface of a blow molded hollow body may be welded “in
the course” of raising the pressure to a value of about 6 bars
(column 7, lines 62 and 63) and that the pressure may then be
reduced at a time when the blow molded body “has not yet
hardened or which is only partially hardened” (column 8, lines
13 and 14). These teachings, in our view, are suggestive of
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