Appeal No. 1999-1818 Page 9
Application No. 08/586,806
In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 590, 18 USPQ2d 1089, 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991); In re Wood, 582
F.2d 638, 642, 199 USPQ 137, 140 (CCPA 1978)). It follows then that we shall also sustain
the examiner's rejections of claims 3 and 4 as being unpatentable over Macura in view of Enda
and of claim 5 as being unpatentable over Macura in view of Sugiyama.
Turning now to the examiner's rejection of claims 7, 8 and 10 as being unpatentable
over Macura in view of Enda, we note that claim 7 is directed to a process for producing a
push rod comprising, inter alia, a step of supplying an electric current between the rod body
and the steel ball, wherein
a welding current I is set in a range of 18,000 # I # 21,000 amperes, a pressing
force P is set in a range of 350 kilogram-force # P # 400 kilogram force and a
current supplying time t is set in a range of t < 2 cycle.6
Neither Macura nor Enda discloses or suggests a welding process using this particular
combination of current, pressing force and current supplying time. From our perspective, the
only suggestion to weld the push rod in accordance with the claimed combination of operating
parameters is found in the luxury of hindsight accorded one who first viewed the appellants'
disclosure. This, of course, is not a proper basis for a rejection. See In re Fritch, 972 F.2d
1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
Therefore, we shall not sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 7, 8 and 10.
6While the claim does not explicitly recite the frequency of the applied current or define what is meant by
a cycle, based on the definition of 1 cycle as 1/50 second on page 8 of the appellants' specification, we interpret "t
< 2 cycle" as requiring that the current supplying time be less than 2/50 second.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007