Appeal No. 2000-0084 Page 4
Application No. 08/619,672
set forth in the claim. However, it is present in the claim, and this feature can be evaluated
in view of the teachings of the applied prior art.
We begin our analysis by pointing out that there is no explicit description in Ariel of
the portion of the rivet that is located at the intersection of the head and the shank. We
thus are left only to the drawings to determine whether it is curved, as the examiner has
urged. As we view the drawings, in which the rivets are shown in side elevation, the
juncture between the rivet head and the shank appears to be rounded in Figures 2, 3, 7,
and 8, not to be rounded in Figures 4, 10, 11, and rounded on one side and not rounded
on the other side in Figures 13 and 14. In Ariel’s description of the drawings, it is stated
that Figure 2 illustrates a rivet in accordance with the invention and that the rest of the
Figures illustrate the same rivet (for example, Figures 3, 4 and 5 illustrate “the self-piercing
rivet of Figure 2”). Since a multitude of the Figures illustrate the rivet shown in Figure 2,
and they differ in their presentation of this particular portion, it is our conclusion that it
cannot be determined with certainty that Ariel teaches that there is a substantially rounded
transition region having a radius extending from the shank to the head. This being the
case, the rejection of independent claim 9 and dependent claims 11-13 under Section 102
cannot be sustained.
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