Appeal No. 2003-0423
Application No. 09/377,015
The portion of Kinuta relied upon by the examiner for this
claim requirement is figure 5B (office action mailed June 12,
2001, paper no. 6, pages 3-4). The examiner argues that “[t]he
annular groove (as shown in Fig. 5B) is a means for forming a
pair of outwardly swinging doors (clm 22). When the safety valve
is ruptured along the third segment [i.e., groove 2 having thin
floor 3], the two portions on either side of the third segment
will be blown outwards (swinging doors)” (office action mailed
June 12, 2001, paper no. 6, page 4).
The examiner’s argument that the portions on either side of
the groove in figure 5B are blown outwards when the safety valve
ruptures along the groove is mere speculation. Kinuta’s only
discussions of this figure are the following:
FIG. 5B is a plan view of an explosion prevention
safety device with yet another safety valve groove
configuration. [col. 3, lines 9-10]
* * *
Instead, the groove 2 may also have a non-closed
configuration such as the shapes shown in FIG. 5.
[col. 4, lines 53-55]
Moreover, the examiner’s argument appears to be inconsistent
with Kinuta’s discussion regarding another embodiment. In that
embodiment, an explosion prevention safety device composed of a
thin metal floor (3) having a second metal layer (13) thereon has
a portion removed from the second metal layer so as to form a
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