Appeal No. 1998-3026
Application No. 08/531,613
The next steps in manufacture are described in the last paragraph of page 8
through the first paragraph of page 10. Upper stationary subassembly A and lower
stationary subassembly B are placed in die 8a (Fig. 5) for injection molding using the
claimed “synthetic resin.” Upper mold half 9 is lowered until it abuts lower mold half 8.
During this operation, the alignment pins 9c, 9d move into the
respective notches 55g of the upper stationary subassembly A to accurately
align the upper and lower stationary subassemblies.
Then, under this condition, molten synthetic resin is injected into the
mold through the injection port 9a of the upper mold half 9 until all the space
inside the mold is filled with resin flowing into the inside of the upper and
lower stationary subassemblies A and B....Fig. 6 is a schematic perspective
view of a stator assembly 51' taken out of the injection metal mold. As seen
from Fig. 6, a pair of small holes 51a, 51a are formed by the alignment pins
at the locations of the notches in the stator assembly 51'.
(Specification, page 9, final ¶ through page 10, first ¶.)
Claim 1 is thus at odds with the disclosed process and product thereof. The “small
holes” are not “provided” in a surface of the synthetic resin so that alignment pins inserted
into the alignment notches exclude synthetic resin from the holes. Rather, the “small holes”
are in place over the alignment notches because the alignment pins displace liquid resin
during the molding steps, and thus prevent resin from forming over the alignment notches
which mate with the respective alignment pins.1
The function of claims is (1) to point out what the invention is in such a way as to
distinguish it from the prior art; and (2) to define the scope of protection afforded by the
1In this regard we note that original claim 1, which comprises a portion of the disclosure of the
invention, recited that the small holes are “formed by alignment pins in a mold.”
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