Appeal No. 2001-0151 Page 3
Application No. 08/850,981
and to the brief (Paper No. 11, filed August 27, 1999) and reply brief (Paper No. 13,
filed January 4, 2000) for the appellants’ arguments thereagainst.
Opinion
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
We turn first to the examiner’s rejection of claim 1 to 5 and 19 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Hornberger in view of Antonini. In the examiner’s
view Hornberger discloses the subject matter of claim 1 except that Hornberger does
not disclose the seal having a flexible bellows-like connecting portion extending in a
radial direction relative to the shaft longitudinal axis. The examiner relies on Antonini
for teaching supplying a bellows-like connecting portion 28 extending in a radial
direction relative to the shaft longitudinal axis to permit the seal to flex radially. The
examiner concludes:
. . . it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to modify
the flexible connecting portion of Hornberger to include a
bellows-like portion to improve the radial flexibility of the seal
[final rejection at page 4].
Appellants argue that one skilled in the art would not have found it obvious to
combine the references as suggested by the examiner. We agree.
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