Appeal No. 2000-1654
Application 09/097,860
Sattler discloses a stiffener for the trimmed, sloped end of
a corrugated pipe culvert 1. According to the reference,
[e]ach of these stiffeners consists of a corrugated
sheet bent into a pan 3 which encompasses the cut end
of the corrugated pipe 1 from below and runs with a
radial separating space from it in a circumferential
direction as can be seen in particular in Figures 1 and
2. Sheet metal pan 3 is attached to corrugated pipe 1
with the aid of threaded bolts 4 and forms with its
edge corrugations 5 guide beads for walls 6 which close
off the annular space created between sheet metal pan 3
and corrugated pipe 1 in the direction of the pipe
axis. This annular space has a concrete filling 7
which, with the aid of headed stud connectors [8], is
firmly joined to sheet metal pan 3 and corrugated pipe
1 so that, for the stiffener, a composite structure is
created in which tensile forces are absorbed by the
corrugated sheets of pipe 1 or of pan 3 and the
compressive forces are absorbed by concrete filling 7
[translation, pages 6 and 7].
A person having ordinary skill in the art would have found
ample suggestion or motivation in Sivachenko’s disclosure of the
strengthening and stiffening benefits of concrete fillings in a
corrugated metal structure and in Sattler’s disclosure of the
force-absorbing advantages afforded by headed stud connectors
which firmly join such fillings and metal structure to provide
the corrugated metal arches disclosed by Wilson and Gurtner with
concrete fillings and shear bond connectors of the sort recited
in claim 1. The express teachings in the prior art relating to
these benefits/advantages belie the appellant’s position that the
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