Appeal No. 1999-2145 Page 12
Application No. 08/781,605
(column 3, line 49). Shaw further teaches that a filler can be used prior to tape installation
to repair irregularities in the surface. Medkeff discloses a similar method of repair, using
flexible copper tape and solder or the like, in which the tape may be spring loaded so it
attempts to conform to the surface of the pipe as it is wound thereon (column 2, lines 58-
65). Basic to the methods disclosed in both of these references is that an uncured flexible
tape be helically wrapped about the pipe, and that the resulting patch then be cured into a
hardened, solidified mass. Stark discloses a method of repairing structures, including
pipe, in which a filler is covered with a single layer of glass fiber cloth that is fused into the
surface of the structure after installation by the curing of an epoxy or the like.
The objective of all three of these references is to provide a hardened solidified
mass from a helically wrapped flexible material. None of them install on the damaged
article a material comprising unidirectional high tensile strength filaments in a cured resin
matrix, and none is concerned with securing convolutions that are arranged in radial
alignment against movement with respect to one another when pressure is applied from
within the repaired structure. The mere fact that the prior art structure could be modified
does not make such a modification obvious unless the prior art suggests the desirability of
doing so.2 In the present case, we fail to perceive any teaching, suggestion or incentive in
the applied references which would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the
2See In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
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