Appeal No. 2005-1125 4
Application No. 10/144,328
The appellants contend that McCormick does not disclose, and
would not have suggested, a piston-cylinder assembly meeting the
limitation in independent claim 1 requiring the sheath tube
(McCormick’s bellows 56), the resilient stop pad (McCormick’s
jounce bumper 26) and the end cap (McCormick’s striker cap 32) to
be “formed as separate parts and assembled to form a preassembled
unit which can stand independently of said piston rod and said
container tube.” The examiner takes two approaches to this
issue.
In the first approach, the examiner submits that “[c]learly
the elements [i.e., the bellows 56, jounce bumper 26 and striker
cap 32] of McCormick et al [are] capable of being assembled apart
from the rest of the damper” (answer, page 3). McCormick,
however, does not provide any factual support for this assertion.
Although the reference discloses that the bellows 56, jounce
bumper 26 and striker cap 32 are formed as separate parts, it
does not disclose, and would not have suggested, that these
elements are, or are capable of being, “assembled to form a
preassembled unit which can stand independently of said piston
rod and said container tube” under any reasonable interpretation
of this claim language.
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