Appeal No. 2000-0210 Page 4
Application No. 08/893,906
We will not sustain the rejection of claim 9 under 35
U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph.
Claim 9 on appeal reads as follows:
In a process for manufacturing a radial shaft-
sealing ring comprising a sealing ring made of a
polymeric material with sealing properties, whereby the
sealing ring has at least one lip that rests on the shaft
to be sealed and rests against a backing ring at the side
not subject to pressure, whereby the sealing ring is
permanently fastened to a reinforcing ring having an
angle-shaped profile with a radially inward extending leg
that at least partially overlaps and rests directly
against the backing ring, the process including the steps
of inserting both the reinforcing ring and the backing
ring in a tool cavity, filling the remaining space in the
tool cavity with a raw polymeric sealing material in the
form of a liquid or paste, allowing the polymeric sealing
material to solidify and bond to the reinforcing ring and
removing the radial shaft-sealing ring from the cavity;
the improvement comprising the step of incorporating
an anti-adhesive additive in the hard plastic material[1]
of the backing ring to prevent the backing ring from
attaching to the polymeric material that the sealing ring
is made of.
The examiner's sole basis for this rejection (answer, p.
3) is that "[t]he specification does not disclose suitable
1While there is no antecedent basis in claim 9 for the
phrase "the hard plastic material" we understand the claim as
a whole as reciting that the backing ring is made from a hard
plastic material which incorporates an anti-adhesive additive.
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