Appeal No. 1998-1711 Page 17
Application No. 08/506,387
As to claims 2 and 3, which depend from claim 1 and further require that the further
reservoir is adapted to contain a further windshield washing liquid and engine coolant fluid,
respectively, the expansion tank taught by Penkwitz is fully capable of containing either type of
liquid.
Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Eustache in view of Penkwitz, as applied above with regard to claim 1, in further view of the
state of the art of engine coolant mounting conventions.
Eustache (Figure 7 and translation, page 14) discloses a dovetail mortise 252 and tenon
251 arrangement for removably mounting the reservoir 100 and wiping module 200 to one
another. Moreover, we also take official notice that it was well known and conventional in the9
art at the time of the appellants' invention to mount engine coolant expansion tanks removably
in the engine compartment of a vehicle in a similar manner. Therefore, it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to have mounted the coolant expansion tank taught by
Penkwitz in a removable manner along with the reservoir 100 and wiping module 200 in the
Eustache assembly in accordance with the convention in the art.
With particular regard to claim 10, the compensator line taught by Penkwitz leading to
the radiator responds to the "at least one connecting duct" and the connector 22 responds to the
9The appellants, of course, have the right to challenge this official notice in response to this decision and
demand production of evidence in support thereof, provided such challenge is accompanied by adequate information
or argument that, on its face, creates a reasonable doubt regarding the circumstances justifying the official notice.
See In re Boon, 439 F.2d 724, 169 USPQ 231, 234 (CCPA 1971).
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