Appeal No. 2000-0203 Application No. 08/924,099 invention was made “to add the auxiliary [elastomeric] sealing member as disclosed by Jelinek into the space of the gasket [between the flange periphery 38 and the pressure regulation plate 32] as disclosed by Udagawa et al. for better sealing” (final rejection, page 3). This reference combination is reasonable on its face. Jelinek’s teaching that sealing is facilitated by the use of elastomeric sealing members filling and projecting upwardly from recesses in a rigid base plate (see, for example, column 2, lines 37 through 40) would have provided the artisan with ample suggestion or motivation to add such an elastomeric sealing member to Udagawa’s gasket in the recess or space between the periphery 38 of flange 35 and the pressure regulation plate 32, thereby arriving at the subject matter recited in claim 1. For the most part, the appellant’s contention that the rejection is unsound rests on the individual deficiencies of Udagawa and Jelinek with respect to the claimed invention. Non-obviousness cannot be established, however, by attacking references individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a 6Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007