Appeal No. 2002-1593
Application 09/091,020
to a method of using same (claim 16 and presumably claims 17
through 191). Representative claim 7 reads as follows:2
7. Peripheral cam for a valve-controlled internal-combustion
engine, comprising
an opening flank with a cam contour configured to generate
at least one positive acceleration course in a valve opening
area, with an opening acceleration course having first and second
acceleration curves with acceleration peak values of different
amounts spaced by way of an intermediate curve of positive
acceleration lower than the first and second acceleration curves,
wherein the first acceleration curve has a peak value of
approximately 40 to 60% of a peak value of the adjacent second
acceleration curve set at 100%,
an ascending curve section of the first acceleration curve
and a descending curve section of the second acceleration curve
form at least one projected intersection respectively with a zero
acceleration line, and
a distance between respective connection points of the
descending curve section of the first acceleration curve and of
the ascending curve section of the second acceleration curve with
the intermediate curve corresponding to an amount of about 10 to
15% of the distance of the at least one projected intersections
at 100%.
1 The preambles of claims 17 through 19 (“Peripheral cam”)
are inconsistent with the method recited in parent claim 16.
Also, claim 11 is redundant, and the limitations in claims 7, 8,
10, 13, 15, 16 and 18 relating to the projected intersections are
somewhat garbled and hard to follow. Each of these informalities
is deserving of correction in the event of further prosecution
before the examiner.
2 Independent method claim 16 defines the peripheral cam
with limitations essentially similar to, if not identical with,
those in claim 7 and further recites the step of “using the
peripheral cam as a cam for actuating one of an inlet valve and
an outlet valve.”
2
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