Appeal No. 2001-2382 Page 7
Application No. 09/376,461
established by welding the seams. Thus, DeBlock falls short of disclosing or teaching
that the flashing is seamless, or that it is made of metal, both as required by claim 1.
Hoy discloses a skylight assembly and is concerned with leak-proof construction
of the flashing (curb unit 45; see column 1, lines 52-55; column 3, lines 47-49). In this
regard, Hoy teaches that “the curb unit 45 [Figure 3] is produced by vacuum forming a
sheet of semi-rigid plastics material such as vinyl, and includes a frame-shaped curb
portion 46 which integrally connects a laterally or downwardly projecting rectangular
mounting flange portion 52" (column 2, lines 57-63). It is our opinion that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been taught by Hoy that the DeBlock flashing could
be formed from a single piece of seamless vacuum formed plastics material, but not
that it be made of metal, much less seamless metal.
The examiner then looks to Streiter, which is directed to “a support, generally
referred to as a ‘curb,’ for placement upon the roof of a building, and upon which a
piece of material such as an air conditioning unit is mounted” (column 1, lines 11-14).
The Streiter device can be of sheet metal or fiberglass (column 1, lines 21 and 22). As
explained in column 3, the components of the device are formed by bending, and are
attached together at their seams by welding (lines 14-21). There is no teaching in
Streiter that this metal device is entirely seamless. Nor would this appear to be a
requirement since the device is not a flashing surrounding an opening in a roof, and
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