Appeal No. 2005-1833 Page 5
Application No. 10/338,337
Claim 31
The examiner’s application of Markey provides no cure for the deficiency of
Castner noted above. It follows that the rejection of claim 31, which depends from claim
23, as being unpatentable over Castner in view of Markey also cannot be sustained.
Claims 33, 34 and 39-42
The appellants argue on pages 13-14 of their brief that Castner lacks “a manifold
interconnecting the first piston rod and the second piston rod as one monolithic piece.”
In particular, the appellants argue that Castner’s head 40 (Figure 2) is not a manifold,
that is, a pipe fitting with several outlets for connecting one pipe with others, because
the passages 37, 38 are kept separate from each other and emerge from the head 40 at
respective orifices 41, 42. Be that as it may, as pointed out by the examiner on page 4
of the answer, the passages 37N, 38N from the hollow pistons 31N and 32N are brought
together within the head 40N of Castner’s Figure 3 to form a single discharge passage
50 and the fluid from the two is ejected as a single stream through a single nozzle 51.
As such, the examiner’s statement on page 4 of the answer that the Figure 3
embodiment of Castner meets the manifold definition as presented by the appellant is
correct. We also note that the sectioning in Figure 3 indicates that the head 40N and the
two hollow pistons 31N and 32N are formed as one monolithic piece. The rejection of
claim 33 as being anticipated by Castner is sustained.
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