Appeal No. 1999-2601
Application 08/862,682
reliance on Bates to overcome this particular deficiency is not
well taken.
Bates pertains to a study which monitored the force or
tension required to pull a composite strand from the impregnation
chamber and sizing die of a cross-head/thermoplastic pultrusion
compounding system. According to the study, pulling tension may
play a significant role in controlling fiber damage and resin
impregnation, and may be indicative of what is occurring inside
the impregnation chamber (see page 2047). The graphs illustrated
in Figures 3 through 6 (see pages 2050 and 2051) depict
experimental results showing the effects of various spreader pin
quantities, spreader pin diameters and melt temperatures (i.e.,
viscosities) on the relationship between pulling force (tension)
and speed. Of note is that the various experiments involve a
common, constant entrance tension (see page 2048).
In the examiner’s view (see pages 8, 9, 14, 15, 26 and 27 in
the answer), Bates demonstrates that entrance tension as recited
in claims 5 and 7 is an art-recognized, result-effective
variable. From this, the examiner concludes that the specific
entrance tension parameters set forth in these claims would have
been obvious optimizations of this variable. Bates, however,
demonstrates nothing of the sort. To the contrary, Bates’
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