Appeal No. 1997-4374 Page 4
Application No. 08/317,679
process of making the joint. Moreover, the
examiner takes Official Notice that cold
extrusion and forging processes are well known
in the art, and it is possible for the housing
of Buhl to be manufactured by a cold extrusion
process and the shaft by a forging process.
As evidence of the Official Notice taken
above, the Examiner cites Hasler et al.
4,618,163. Hasler et al. shows automotive
chassis in which an extruded member is welded
to a forged member (Col 3, lines 58-60; Col 4,
lines 1-4; Col 3, lines 24-27). As evidence
of the motivation of providing a strong, yet
low cost connection between the shaft and
housing, the [Australian] reference and the
excerpt from the book Robotic and Automated
Manufacturing, is cited (emphasis in the
orignal; answer, page 4).
We cannot sustain the appealed rejection. In the first
place, there is no teaching in the Australian patent or any of
the other cited references, for that matter, of dividing Buhl’s
one piece housing and shaft structure (1, 2) into separate
housing and shaft parts and then contour welding those parts
together. In this regard, there is no evidence of record that
a contour welded connection between separately formed housing
and shaft parts would be stronger than the unitary connection
in Buhl’s one piece housing and shaft structure to provide the
motivation for dividing Buhl’s one piece structure into
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