Appeal No. 1999-0055 Page 5
Application No. 08/703,545
conditions, the plastic material of the seat members will flow from the more dense
(imperforate) portions to the less dense (perforated) portions, which allows considerable
pressure to be applied normal to the surface without significantly altering the overall
dimensions of the seat members. See column 5, line 53 et seq..
Conley is directed to a plastic valve body which is molded around a cylindrical
metal reinforcing frame that is aligned with the openings in the valve body. In a first
embodiment, as shown in Figures 3-5, the reinforcing frame comprises an imperforate
sleeve. An alternative embodiment is shown in Figures 17 and 18, wherein the sleeve is
provided with a plurality of perforations. It is Conley's teaching of using imperforate or
perforate sleeves to reinforce the valve body that the examiner seeks to apply to the valve
seat members. However, as far as valve seat assemblies are concerned, Conley teaches
utilizing a relatively soft seat element 312 reinforced by a relatively harder support element
314. The reinforcing element is a separate entity and is not encapsulated in the valve seat
element.
We find ourselves in agreement with the appellants that the teachings of the two
applied references would not have rendered the claimed invention obvious. It is our
opinion that whereas Conley would have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that
valve body members be reinforced by either perforate or imperforate frames encapsulated
in the plastic, it would have taught that valve seat members be reinforced by backing the
soft seating element with a harder separate reinforcing element. The
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