Appeal No. 2005-1262
Application No. 09/864,809
controlled” (page 1, lines 19 through 26).
Independent claim 1 recites a valve assembly for a mix head
assembly of a molding system comprising, inter alia, a mix head
comprising an inlet to a mixer section and an outlet from the
mixer section. In rejecting claim 1, the examiner finds that
Larsen “discloses a valve assembly comprising a mix head (6,5 the
bottom one in Fig.3) comprising an inlet to and outlet from a mix
section” (answer, page 4). Larsen actually teaches that “5
designates [a] steam supply pipe which is made up of a plurality
of pipe sections coupled together as indicated at 6” (page 1,
lines 51 through 54). Nonetheless, the examiner submits that
“[m]ixing could take place in this structural element, for
example, if an inhomogeneous fluid were flowing therethrough and
became more homogeneous therein through diffusion” (answer, pages
8 and 9).
The examiner’s position here is unsound. Even accepting the
examiner’s conjecture that mixing could take place in Larsen’s
steam supply pipe 5, a person of ordinary skill in the art would
not view this pipe as a mix head of the sort recited, however
broadly, in claim 1.
Independent claim 17 recites a molding system comprising,
inter alia, a mix head comprising an inlet to a mixer section and
5
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