Appeal No. 2002-2092
Application 09/328,467
While we find no fault with the examiner’s above-noted
combination of the applied patents to Passaniti and Georgopoulos,
we do not agree with the examiner’s findings concerning the
gasket seen in Figure 4A of Passaniti, or with the examiner’s
apparent position that the proposed combination of these patents
in the manner set forth in the rejection before us on appeal
would result in the subject matter claimed by appellants.
Independent claims 1 and 7 on appeal require a gasket which
includes “a cylindrical portion whose lower portion is gradually
increased in thickness towards the lower end thereof,” i.e., hub
portion (3) as seen in Figure 10 of the application, a disc-
shaped portion (4) formed contiguously along the outer
circumference of and concentrically with the cylindrical portion,
and a thin portion (5) formed between the cylindrical and disc-
shaped portions, concentrically with the cylindrical portion and
in a position nearer to the bottom of the disc-shaped portion,
with “the boundary between the cylindrical and thin portions
being chamfered or curved,” as more clearly shown in Figures 13A
and 13B of appellants’ application. While we agree with the
examiner that the gasket seen in Figure 4A and/or Figure 3B of
Passaniti includes a central cylindrical hub portion (44) having
5
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