Appeal No. 2002-0342 Page 4
Application No. 09/295,399
of the driving band and an iron partial driving band located at the rear of the driving
band.” However, the examiner is of the opinion that these features are disclosed in the
German patent, and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to so
modify the projectile of the British reference “to reduce barrel wear, as taught by the
German patent.” See Answer, page 3. The appellants argue in rebuttal that the copper
partial bands on the projectile disclosed in the British reference do not engage the rifling
of the barrel and therefore are not “guide bands” in the terminology of the invention, and
that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to combine the
references in the manner proposed by the examiner. See Brief, pages 7 and 8.
As described in the appellants’ specification, “guide bands” are elements which
“transfer the torque from the rifling of the weapon barrel” to the projectile to spin-
stabilize the projectile (page 2, lines 14-16), and to accomplish this the guide bands
“have such a diameter that as the projectile passes through the barrel, they are pressed
into the rifling thereof” (page 2, lines 17-20). The specification explains that guide
bands have been made of copper and copper alloy, which have the disadvantage of
being inefficient to transfer torque because of their propensity for high wear as they
pass through the barrel (page 2, line 16 et seq.), of soft iron, which has the
disadvantage of increasing wear on the barrel (page 3, line 4 et seq.) and, as in the
German patent applied against the claims, of a forward partial guide band of copper
arranged ahead of a rearward partial guide band of soft iron, with the copper partial
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007