Appeal No. 1998-1928 Page 11
Application No. 08/543,153
The examiner then determined (answer, p. 5) that
[i]t would have been obvious to use the seal disclosed by
Storms in the assembly of Duffy, since Duffy is silent
regarding the details of the seal and since Storms
discloses that this seal is desirable for use in
hydraulic systems.
The appellant argues (brief, p. 9) that there is no
disclosure in Duffy that cures the deficiencies of Storms
discussed previously in the anticipation rejection and that
the filing date of Duffy is not earlier than the appellant's
priority date. We find that the appellant's argument does not
persuade us of any error in the examiner's rejection of claims
12 and 13. In that regard, we note as discussed above that
there were no deficiencies in Storms with regard to the
anticipation rejection of parent claim 14. While the filing
date of Duffy is not earlier than the appellant's priority
date, we believe that the examiner's reliance of the known
power steering mechanism (see column 1, lines 5-51 of Duffy)
disclosed in patent 4,570,736 is tantamount to applying U.S.
Patent No. 4,570,736 (issued February 18, 1986) itself.
Accordingly, the appellant's priority date of January 16, 1991
is insufficient to remove the known power steering mechanism
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