Appeal No. 1997-0061
Application 08/246,140
the rejection in the Examiner's Answer. Appellants'
arguments that "[t]here is simply not enough information set
forth in the references to identify the K value of these
devices as claimed by Applicants" (Br6) is not persuasive
because Shrader and Bauder together provide sufficient
information to calculate the K value.
With respect to Appellants' argument that the spring of
the disclosed invention and the spring of Shrader have a
much different shape and that "[t]here is simply no
indication that these two distinctly shaped springs would
have similar K values for which a valid comparison could be
made" (RBr3), we note that such argument is not commensurate
in scope with claim 1. Claim 1 does not recite any special
spring shape.
In our opinion, a shape factor K in a range from
10 mm /kg to 100 mm /kg, wherein the shape factor K is3 3
determined by the given equation, does not alone provide the
advantages described in the specification. The shape factor
equation does not include any terms that would account for
material. For example, a stainless steel spring is going to
be more resilient than an aluminum spring. Furthermore, the
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