Appeal No. 1998-1263
Application No. 08/351,993
of pressure application members or actuators, a requirement of
each of appellant's independent claims. As can readily be
discerned from Figs. 2 and 4 of Chamberlain the pistons 32
contact pressure plate 31 not annular layer 36. For the above
reasons, the examiner's first rejection, under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) cannot be sustained.
The second rejection
We do not sustain the rejection of claims 3, 4, 12, and 13
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Chamberlain in
view of Guichard.
Respective claims 3 and 4 and claims 12 and 13 depend from
independent claims 1 and 10 and recite particular materials for
the first rigid disk.
In this obviousness rejection, the examiner proposes to make
the flat, annular layer 36 of Chamberlain from a carbon composite
material, based upon the teaching of Guichard.3 However, even if
3 While, as utilized by the examiner, the Guichard patent is
not dispositive, this document nevertheless is quite relevant to
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