Appeal No. 1999-0067
Application 08/533,305
(Paper No. 14, page 2). The examiner has taken the position
that Rudolph teaches the claimed bayonet connection, and that
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art
to replace the conventional screw connection of Espy with a
bayonet arrangement to reduce the amount of rotation needed to
couple the members together. The examiner further opines that
it would have been obvious to use a metal seal in view of the
teachings of Smith, III “to improve the pressure capacity and
reusability of the coupling” (Paper No. 14, page 3).
We do not agree that the combined teachings of these
references establish a prima facie case of obviousness with
regard to the subject matter recited in claim 18. Our reasons
for arriving at this conclusion follow.
Espy discloses a coupler in which male and female members
are connected together with an elastomeric seal in between.
However, unlike the appellant’s invention, in the Espy system
the coupling members do not rotate with respect to one another
during the coupling process. They are attached together by
means of a separate rotatable threaded collar installed on the
outside of the female member, which engages threads on the
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