Appeal No. 1997-4118
Application No. 08/381,814
This is a decision on appeal from the examiner's final
rejection of claims 9 through 11 and 13 through 17, which are
all of the claims remaining in the application. Claims 1
through 8 and 12 have been canceled.
Appellants’ invention relates to a tube or pipe for
feeding petrol (gasoline), in particular to motor vehicle
engines. On page 1 of the specification, appellants observe
that, at present, polyamide pipes are commonly employed for
transporting petrol in motor vehicles. However, the industry
has now determined that such polyamide pipes no longer meet
necessary permeability requirements, especially with the
increasing presence of methanol in petrol. When used to
transport these newer petrol formulations containing methanol,
the polyamide pipes are said to swell, resulting in a decrease
in the mechanical properties and undesirable dimensional
changes. In an effort to overcome these disadvantages
appellants have provided a five-layer polyamide-based petrol
supply pipe as reflected in claim 9 on appeal having an
intermediate layer of fluoropolymer. As indicated on page 4
of the specification, it has been found that
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