Appeal No. 1999-0545 Page 3
Application No. 08/606,068
The appellants’ invention is directed to heating the edge dam blocks associated
with continuous belt metal casting machines. As explained in the specification, it has been
recognized in the prior art that heating the continuous belts on these machines minimizes
the loss of heat from the casting to the belts, which would result in distortions to the cast
metals. The appellants’ invention further improves upon this by heating the edge dam
blocks by means of induction heaters. As manifested in independent claim 1, the invention
comprises first and second endless orbiting means for forming a casting region mounted
on pulleys and having common first lengths and facing front surfaces at the casting region,
first and second edge dam blocks each comprising a continuous chain and disposed on
the outer edges of the front surfaces for rotation with the orbiting means, the edge dam
blocks having common second lengths greater than the first lengths to define first and
second catenaries, means for providing molten metal to the casting region, and
first and second induction heating means for inductively heating the first and
second edge dam blocks prior to introduction of molten metal into the
casting region, the induction heating means being located at the catenaries
and respectively associated with the dam blocks, whereby the dam blocks
are inductively heated during rotation of the orbiting means to preclude
temperature distortion of the casting region from the molten metal.
The examiner has rejected claim 1, and all of the other claims, as being
unpatentable over the “combined teaching of Ross and Wood,” presenting two
scenarios with regard to their application (Answer, page 3). In the first, it is the examiner’s
position that it would have been obvious to “prolong the service life of dam block [sic,
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