Appeal No. 2005-2698 Παγε 6
Application No. 10/316,636
minimum piston wear stroke, which use rotors and stators of different thicknesses and
replace the thinner of the rotors and stators when they become fully worn, re-machining
the faces of the other of the rotors and stators which are not yet fully worn for use with
the new disks. According to Souetre, the Bok technique has the advantage of good
equilibrium in the heat sink but suffers from the drawback of requiring re-machining of
all the contact faces of the not yet fully worn disks after a first wear stroke of the pistons,
in order to avoid contact between a new face and a worn face on an adjacent disk,
since this gives rise to expensive loss of carbon (column 1, lines 49-55).
In order to overcome the disadvantage of the Bok technique wherein stators and
rotors of different thicknesses are used, Souetre teaches using stators and rotors of
equal thickness which will wear at the same time. When the maximum wear stroke of
the pistons has been reached, which occurs before the stators and rotors have fully
worn, Souetre discloses inserting a carbon spacer disk of thickness that is less than the
wear stroke of the pistons.
In rejecting independent claims 1, 20 and 31, and claims 2-10, 21-30 and 32
depending therefrom, as being unpatentable over Bok in view of Souetre, the examiner
contends that it would have been obvious to use a spacer as taught by Souetre in the
Bok brake in order to reduce the brake piston travel while optimizing the brake disc
utilization, thereby improving brake performance and durability (final rejection, page 2).
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