Appeal No. 2005-0687
Application No. 10/097,510
and, therefore, not germane to the degree of protection sought by
the appealed claims.
Specifically, appellant contends that the prior art does not
disclose the claim 20 requirement that "the bearing cap having a
radially inner edge that extends around the annular flange of the
thrust collar" (emphasis added). However, we agree with the
examiner's reasoning that the admitted prior art depicted in
appellant's Figure 1 comprises a bearing cap 36 having inner
walls 44 and 46 and a lip 48 that is situated "around" thrust
collar 34 (see paragraph bridging pages 3 and 4 of Answer). As
explained by the examiner,
[t]he language of the claim does not narrowly limit the
radially inner edge (the lip of the APA of Figure 1) to
be at the same axial position as the thrust collar but
only requires the lip to be 'on various sides' of or
'in any direction' towards the thrust collar.
(Page 4 of Answer, first paragraph, penultimate sentence). Claim
20 does not require, as urged by appellant, that "the radially
inner edge of the bearing cap circumscribes the annular flange of
the thrust collar" (page 3 of Reply Brief, third paragraph).
Appellant also maintains that the admitted prior art does
not disclose the claim 25 requirement that "the bearing cap
having an annular side wall with an interior surface that extends
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