Appeal No. 1999-0545 Page 2 Application No. 08/606,068 BACKGROUND The appellants’ invention relates to an apparatus for continuously casting molten metal . An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which appears in the appendix to the appellants’ Brief. The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are: Wood et al. (Wood) 4,934,441 Jun. 19, 1990 Ross 5,133,402 Jul. 28, 1992 Claims 1-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combined teachings of Ross and Wood. Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the appellants regarding the above-noted rejection, we make reference to the Answer (Paper No. 15) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejection, and to the Brief (Paper No. 14) for the appellants’ arguments thereagainst. OPINION In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations which follow.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007