Appeal No. 2005-2176 Page 6
Application No. 10/266,229
between the pump inlet and outlet and a filter removably positioned in said chamber.
The examiner’s reading of claim 5 on the structure of Reighard requires the manifold
block 17 to be considered part of the pump which, of course, means that the manifold
block 17 cannot also be considered to meet the manifold recited in claim 5. In rejecting
claim 5 (final rejection, page 2; answer, page 3), the examiner contends that Reighard’s
dispensing gun 11 responds structurally to the “manifold” recited in the claim. The
dispensing gun 11 is not a “manifold,” that is, “a pipe with one inlet and several outlets
or with one outlet and several inlets, for connecting with other pipes” (Webster’s
NewWorld Dictionary (Simon and Schuster 1984)), as one of ordinary skill in the art
would understand that term4. Rather, Reighard’s dispensing gun 11 has a single
thermoplastic material inlet from conduit 19 and a single thermoplastic material outlet
orifice 126. The dispensing gun also comprises a single air inlet passage 137, for
receiving pressurized air for actuation of nozzle control valve 128, in communication
with a venting orifice 134 to atmosphere, but the passage 137 and orifice 134 are not in
communication with the thermoplastic material inlet or outlet orifice.
CONCLUSION
To summarize, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 1-9 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102 is affirmed as to claims 1-4 and reversed as to claims 5-9.
4 Consistent with the appellant’s underlying disclosure, the manifold in a hot melt adhesive
dispensing unit is understood to be the pipe which divides the single output conduit from the pump into a
plurality of conduits for dispensing the hot melt adhesive from a single reservoir and pump to a plurality of
dispensing guns.
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