Appeal No. 1997-3255
Application 08/199,455
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 5) and the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 20)
for a statement of the examiner's position and to the Brief3 (Paper No. 19) and the Reply Brief
(Paper No. 22) for appellants’ position.
OPINION
The examiner rejected Claims 1-10 under 35 U.S.C. § 102 as being anticipated by Isaacs,
asserting that the “member extending along the axis” reads on restrictor 20a of the reference.
(See Final Rejection, page 3.) As pointed out in the Answer (page 4), appellants’ Brief was not
responsive to the rejection, but argued that the claims distinguished over “restrictor member 20”
as seen in “Fig. 2.” Isaacs, however, discloses that Figs. 1 and 2 (with restrictor member 20) and
Figs. 3 and 4 (with restrictor member 20a) represent two distinct embodiments of the invention.
In the Reply Brief, appellants argue that the Claim 1 recitation “said front portion having
a non-circularly symmetric lateral cross-section” sets forth structure that is different from Isaacs.
“Clearly, the lateral cross section defined in claim 1 is transverse to the axis of the frustoconical
diaphragm.” (Reply Brief, page 3.) Appellants contend that the rejection is based on “taking the
cross section in the wrong plane, i.e. through the axis, and not lateral to the axis as required by
claim 1.” (Id.)
3 We have not considered initial briefs (those prior to Paper No. 19, the Brief filed June 27, 1996,
with Certificate of Mailing June 21, 1996) which were refused entry by the examiner.
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