Appeal No. 1999-1165 Page 4
Application No. 08/753,174
and second ends, and an inner circumferential surface between the ends upon which slip
nut engaging means are affixed. First and second handles extend from the first and
second ends for rotating the body portion, with the handles having inner surfaces that are
spaced apart when the wrench is in a neutral condition. It is the examiner’s view that all of
the subject matter recited in claim 1 is disclosed by Vollers, except for the particular
means for grasping the nut, which the examiner finds in any of Moulin, Goss or Gilbert.
The arguments set out by the appellants in response to the examiner’s position
focus on the preamble and the last seven lines of claim 1, which the appellants believe
establish that there is a patentable distinction over the applied prior art. These passages
read as follows:
A wrench for rotating a plastic slip nut relative to axially opposed tubular
drain components having a diameter greater than one inch and coupled by
said slip nut to provide a joint therebetween.
[H]andles having opposed spaced apart inner surfaces, said body portion
having a neutral condition in which said ends of said body portion and said
inner surfaces of said handles are spaced apart a given distance, the
resiliency of said polymeric material biasing said body portion to said
neutral condition, said given distance and the resiliency of said polymeric
material providing for said handles to receive one of said drain line
components therebetween and for said handles and body portion to be
moved laterally onto said one drain component for aligning said wrench axis
with said nut axis.
It is the appellants’ position that the language of the preamble cannot be dismissed as
merely setting forth a different use for the wrench disclosed by Vollers, as explicitly is
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