Appeal No. 2000-1327
Application No. 08/402,624
At the outset, we presume familiarity on the reader’s part
with the issues and reasoning expressed in our previous decision
in affirming the examiner’s rejections and adding our new ground
of rejection.
The Johnson reference applied as the primary reference in
each of the standing rejections is appellant’s own patent and
would appear to constitute appellant’s prior art jumping off
point for the presently claimed invention. In Johnson, water
stored in an onboard storage tank 38 is pumped by onboard
manually actuated pump 31 into an essentially rigid pressure
reservoir 3. The water introduced into the reservoir during the
pumping operation acts to trap and compress air in pressure
reservoir 3. This compressed air can be seen at reference
numeral 92 in Figure 2. The manner of operation of the Johnson
device is explained at column 2, lines 36-56, as follows:
As the amount of water and air forced into the pressure
reservoir increases, the pressure of the air displaced
by the water within the pressure reservoir increases.
The pressure of the air and water within the pressure
reservoir increases with each cycle of the pump, until
the pump can no longer overcome the pressure of the air
and water within the pressure tank. The pressurized
air and water within the pressure tank has an avenue of
release that is regulated by the trigger mechanism of
the invention which has a safety pressure release
within its design. When no force is applied to the
trigger, the pressurized water and air are held at bay
with no means of release. When force is applied to the
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