Appeal No. 1998-0277
Application No. 08/478,009
Claim 20 is drawn to a method of welding two double pipe
sections together to form a double containment pipe fitting
wherein one of the two pipe sections extends at an angle away
from the other pipe section. Claim 25 sets forth a method of
forming an angled, butt welded joint in thermoplastic coaxial
pipe sections wherein the pipe sections include a header coaxial
pipe section and a branch coaxial pipe section.
The examiner's rationale in rejecting these claims under
35 U.S.C. § 103 starts with the Windle teaching of joining single
thermoplastic pipes making a T or Y joint with one another
wherein shaped sections are removed from the first and second
pipes and heated and pressed together to form a joint between the
first and second pipe. The examiner recognizes that this
document does not concern itself with double containment pipes.
To supply the deficiency of Windle, the examiner looks to the Ziu
'260 teaching of joining one double containment pipe to another
(Fig. 7) and to either the Ziu '088 disclosure showing a double
containment pipe joined to a branch (Fig. 7) or the Butts
teaching of a double containment pipe joined to a branch (Fig.8).
Based upon this knowledge in the prior art, the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious to use a first double
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