Appeal No. 1999-2145 Page 3
Application No. 08/781,605
Rather than reiterate the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the examiner and the
appellant regarding the above-noted rejections, we make reference to the Answer (Paper
No. 17) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejections, and to the Brief
(Paper No. 16) and the Reply Brief (Paper No. 18) for the appellant’s arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellant’s specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellant’s invention is directed to the problem of restoring the burst strength of
a pipe(line) such as those used to transmit liquids and/or gases under pressure which has
an unbreached weakened area having at least one depression in the outer surface of the
pipe. As manifested in claim 33, the invention comprises the steps of detecting the
weakened region, providing a load-transferring filler material, filling the depression with the
filler material, and wrapping around the pipe in the weakened region a strip of high tensile
strength material comprising high tensile strength filaments in a cured matrix and defining
a coil band with a plurality of elastic convolutions, including placing a first elastic
convolution around the pipe and subsequent convolutions around underlying convolutions
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