Appeal No. 2004-0118 Page 3
Application No. 09/214,663
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellant’s invention is directed to a plastic fuel tank that is produced by
welding together an upper plastic shell and a lower plastic shell which have been
produced by injection molding and are positioned an exact distance from one another
by the use of spacers placed within the tank, with the spacers coming into abutting
relationship with one another when the two portions of the tank are welded together.
The invention is recited in claim 1 in the following manner:
A plastic fuel tank with a bottom and with an upper
closing wall, defined in that it is produced by welding
together an upper plastic shell having the upper closing wall
and a lower plastic shell forming the bottom, in that the two
plastic shells have been produced by injection molding, and
in that, in order to adhere to an exact distance between the
upper closing wall and the bottom, spacers coming into
abutment during the welding operation are provided in the
fuel tank in the region of the weld seam.
All of the claims stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
Luigi. Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, either
expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every element of the claimed
invention. See, for example, In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1478-79, 31 USPQ2d 1671,
1673 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657
(Fed. Cir. 1990). Anticipation by a prior art reference does not require either the
inventive concept of the claimed subject matter or recognition of inherent properties that
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007