Appeal No. 1997-3709
Application 08/582,034
because of its planar style mounting structure.9
Wirth discloses a vented brake disk wherein the rotor is
substantially symmetric in the sense that the friction disk 3
is symmetrically mounted to the rotor hub 1. Moreover, the
friction disk of Wirth includes a pair of spaced apart brake
friction plates 5, each of which include an inner surface that
is tapered radially inwardly to define a cross-sectional
thickness at the radial outer end of the plate that is greater
than the cross-sectional thickness at the radial inner end of
the plate.
Based on our review of Soltis and Wirth, we consider that
the collective teachings of these references are sufficient to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness of claims 7-10.
Specifically, we consider that it would have been prima facie
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to construct the
Figure 4 embodiment of Soltis as a symmetrically mounted,
uniformly thermally balanced structure as an alternative to
the illustrated non-symmetrically mounted, non-uniformly
9This can be appreciated by comparing the hat style
mounting section 82 of the Figure 7 version to the planar
style mounting section 92 of the Figure 8 version.
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