Appeal No. 98-2118
Application No. 08/459,986
representative claim 1, (2) claims 4 and 5 will stand or fall
together with representative claim 4, and (3) claim 7 will
stand or fall alone. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7).
We have carefully reviewed the appellants' invention as
described in the specification, the appealed claims, the prior
art applied by the examiner and the respective positions
advanced by the appellants in the brief and by the examiner in
the answer. As a consequence of this review, we will sustain
all of the above-noted rejections.
Considering first the rejection of claims 1-3, 6, 8 and 9
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Elvekjaer,
the appellants argue that:
The invention recited in applicants' allegedly
anticipated claims has a chord which is generally
constant in a radially outer region in combination
with a chord which generally decreases with
diminishing radius in a radially inner region.
By contrast, the guide vane disclosed by the
reference is described in terms of its chord to
pitch ratio. It is fundamental that knowledge of a
ratio of two quantities does not, without more,
convey any knowledge about the quantities
themselves. It is, therefore, not possible for the
reference's disclosure of a vane having a radially
varying chord-to-pitch ratio to be expressly
anticipatory of an airfoil characterized by a radial
variation in its chord. [Brief, page 5.]
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