Appeal No. 97-4079
Application No. 08/310,592
Claim 3 depends from claim 2 and further recites that the
gears are spur gears. Appellant admits in the specification
(page 2, lines 14, 15) that the use of spurs gears to transmit
power and motion is well known in the art. Considering the
knowledge in the art, as above, we are of the view that the
application of polyketone polymer to spur gears, as set forth
in claim 3, would have been obvious.
Claim 5 depends from claim 1 and further recites that for
a given application of force, motion can be transmitted
between each of the two means (e.g., gears) up to the point of
mechanical failure of the two means when such system is
operated below 85 degrees C. As to the specific limitation
added by claim 5, we note that in the "Background of the
Invention" section of appellant's specification (page 1),
appellant explains that it was known that gear failure can
result from the inability of the gear material to hold a
tolerance, from the inability to withstand the torsional
stresses of start-up and shut-down, and from cyclic fatigue.
We consider all of these reasons to fall within the broad
definition of the term "mechanical failure." Obviously, the
gears shown by Nadal will fail whenever a torsional stress at
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