Appeal No. 1997-1155 Page 5
Application No. 08/376,199
In the embodiment of Figure 8, which was specifically referred to by the examiner in
making the rejection (final rejection, page 2), Tayebi discloses a face mask comprising a foam
shell 11 having a hole 37 into which a collar 38 is thermobonded, friction snap-fit or adhesive
bonded. A cartridge filter 40 "of the type well known in the art" is inserted into a passage 39
of the collar 38, where it is retained in a relatively tight friction fit so as to form a joint through
which no unfiltered air can pass (column 13, lines 9-19). Although the sectioning of the collar
38 shown in Figure 8 appears to indicate that the collar is made of a synthetic resin or plastic,
Tayebi does not further specify the material of the collar 38 or indicate whether it is at all
flexible or compressible. While one of ordinary skill in the art would probably infer that one
of the cartridge filter 40 and collar 38 deforms at least to some degree so as to form an air-tight
joint therebetween, there is no indication that the filter element of the cartridge filter 40 is
compressible at all, let alone more compressible than the collar 38, as required by
claim 1.
Gordon teaches the use of a shell 1 to retain a pair of sponge rubber filters 11, 12 in an
air cleaner for an internal combustion engine. Gordon teaches that the filter beds are slightly
greater in diameter than the band so that the filters become outwardly bowed, as shown in
Figure 3, when they are inserted into the retainer. According to the examiner, it would have
been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the Tayebi device with such a means
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007