Appeal No. 1999-0033
Application No. 08/514,255
In the case at bar, the Ryall patent discloses an impeller, a vane, a vane member,
and a casing, all as defined in claim 5. With regard to these claim elements, appellants do
not take issue with the examiner’s corresponding findings as set forth on page 5 of the
final office action (mailed July 1, 1997) and pages 4 and 5 of the examiner’s answer.
Appellants also do not appear to dispute the fact that Ryall discloses a
compressible resilient member 180 (see Figure 4 of the Ryall drawings) confined
between the diffuser vane structure 44 and what is described in Ryall’s specification as an
“end cover 42.” (see column 5, lines 30-36, of the Ryall specification). Being resilient,
Ryall’s member 180 is elastically deformable and is even described in Ryall’s
specification as being deformable to exert a bias against the assembly of diffuser vane
stages in the casing (see column 5, lines 37-42). Since Ryall’s resilient member 180
engages the diffuser vane stage 44, it can be said that the diffuser vane “has” an
elastically deformable portion in the same sense that appellants’ vane member is said to
have an elastically deformable portion. Appellants have not argued otherwise.
At the oral hearing, appellants’ counsel was understood to argue that Ryall’s
cover member 42 is not part of the casing so that the resilient member 180 does not lie
between the vane structure and the casing as required in claim 5. This argument was not
presented in appellants’ brief. More importantly, it is at odds with appellants’
acknowledgment on page 9 of the brief that Ryall’s element 42 is a “casing.” The prior
art (see column 2, line 29 of the cited O’Sullivan patent) even refers to this element as an
“end casing.”
According to its applicable, common ordinary meaning in Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Company, 1971) the word “casing” is simply
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