Appeal No. 1999-2145 Page 7
Application No. 08/781,605
accomplished after three years of work and the expenditure of millions of dollars (pages 1
and 2).
The Pipeline Reinforcement brochure, which was disseminated in 1987, not only
described the CLOCK SPRING crack arresting device as being capable of stopping
propagating cracks in pipelines, but also stated that it could be used to repair or reinforce
pipe segments that had been damaged by corrosion or other forces and could restore a
damaged area to its original pressure capabilities (page 4). No additional method was
set forth by which this use was to be accomplished. Reinforcement Digest, published in
1989, contains similar statements regarding the use of the crack arrestor for repairing
deteriorated sections of pipeline. In the declaration of Mr. Fawley dated January 9, 1997,
the inventor states on page 2 that although Reinforcement Digest says that the CLOCK
SPRING crack arrestor also could be used to enable a damaged pipeline to operate at its
original design pressure, he believed at the time of the publication that such could not be
accomplished when installed in the manner disclosed for use as a crack arrestor, but that
the device itself could be utilized to repair an unbreached but weakened pipe (page 7).
The declaration explains that tests conducted with the device being secured by adhesive
on each end and with discrete globs between adjacent layers, that is, in accordance with
the instructions for its use as a crack arrestor, did not secure the convolutions from
movement relative to one another under simulated pipeline burst conditions, and thus this
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