Appeal No. 1997-0287
Application 08/263,034
The Examiner's rejection seems to misapprehend the issue.
The Examiner concludes that "it would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the fluid bearings
of Swearington [sic, Swearingen] into either the expands [sic,
expander] or compressor of Andres" (Paper No. 5, pages 2-3)
and "it wold [sic] have been obvious to use a combined fluid
and magnetic bearing system in Andres" (Paper No. 5, page 3).
Thus, the rejection goes to adding backup fluid bearings
(which are not claimed) rather than a backup fluid thrust
balancing system. Nevertheless, it appears from Appellants'
Brief that Appellants interpret the intended rejection to be
addition of a fluid thrust balancing system to Andres (e.g.,
"Andres et al. does not teach, suggest or imply use of a
compressor for fluid thrust balancing as the asserted
combination by the Examiner of this base reference with other
references implies" (Br9-10)).
Andres and New
Initially, we find that New does not disclose a fluid
thrust balancing system for rotary equipment and, thus, cannot
make obvious the claimed subject matter when combined with
Andres. New discloses passages 60, 116 for providing
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