Appeal No. 1998-0091
Application No. 08/404,054
Appellants contend that the evidence relied on by the examiner
fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness.
(a) Claims 3 and 5
Bell discloses various embodiments of capacitive pressure
transducers, of which the examiner relies on the Figure 3
embodiment. This embodiment includes nonconductive disks 2
and 4
made from a zero hysteresis, nonconductive or electrically
insulative elastic material such as alumina, fused silica, or
a glass such as Pyrex (col. 5, lines 33-36) and whose facing
surfaces have applied thereto respective conductive layers 6
and 8. These components are assembled with a glass frit or
ceramic sealing material 32 forming a gap between the
electrodes, after which the assembly is fired, causing the
glass frit to fuse the components together (col. 5, lines 12-
25). Although not mentioned by the examiner or appellants,
Bell explains that high overload pressures can cause the
electrodes to come into contact with each other. See Bell's
column 10, lines 13-17 ("the thickness of the plates and the
width of the gap can be designed such that under high overload
-7-
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