Page 2
Appeal No. 1999-0055
Application No. 08/703,545
BACKGROUND
The appellants’ invention relates to a plug valve assembly (claims 30-44) and to a
plug valve assembly which comprises seat members made by a particular process (claims
16-23 and 25-29). An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 30, which appears in the appendix to the Brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the
appealed claims are:
Freed 3,326,519 Jun. 20, 1967
Conley et al. (Conley) 5,154,396 Oct. 13, 1992
Claims 16-23 and 25-44 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Freed in view of Conley.
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the
appellants regarding the above-noted rejection, we make reference to the Answer (Paper
No. 14) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the Brief
(Paper No. 12) for the appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007