Appeal No. 1998-3300
Application 08/722,907
structure of each of these sealing elements in Di Silvestro is quite different from one another and, with
particular regard to Fig.7, is also distinctly different from the structure of the sealing element (3) of
Bross.
Moreover, we must agree with appellants (brief, page 3) that there is no teaching, suggestion or
incentive in the applied references, or otherwise specified by the examiner, which would have led one of
ordinary skill in the art to modify the sealing element (3) in Figure 4 of Bross to be of the particular
configuration required in independent claims 1 and 7 on appeal. More specifically, we note that the
modification urged by the examiner would not result in a sealing element with an annular rim, a concave
flexible disk attached to and extending over a circular area defined by the internal diameter of the
annular rim, and a “full diameter slit through the radial center and cross-section of the radial disk” of the
sealing element, as is required in appellants’ claims on appeal. Note particularly the slit (44) seen in
Figures 3 and 5 of appellants’ drawings and the clear recitation in claim 1 on appeal that said slit must
extend “from one point of the internal diameter of the annular rim to a radially opposite point.” No such
slit is present in the sealing element (3) of Bross, or in the modification of Bross as proposed by the
examiner.
In this regard, we note that Bross (translation, page 4) indicates that the seal (3) “has a sealed,
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