Appeal No. 2006-2154 Page 2
Application No. 10/786,998
BACKGROUND
The appellant's invention relates to a disc slide mounted between a feed
pipeline and a discharge pipeline. As recited in claim 1, the disc slide includes a
casing, a valve seat comprising two sealing discs, a slide plate, and an actuation
element for the slide plate. The valve seat and the slide plate are provided with a
surface made from a material selected from the group consisting of silicon and
quartz glass. Claim 1 is representative of the subject matter on appeal. A copy of
the claims on appeal can be found in the appendix to the appellant’s brief.
The examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Berchem (Berchem ‘004) 4,968,004 Nov. 06, 1990
Berchem (Berchem ‘427) 5,271,427 Dec. 21, 1993
The appellant seeks our review of the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-3
under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Berchem ‘427 in view of
Berchem ‘004.
Rather than reiterate in detail the conflicting viewpoints advanced by the
examiner and the appellant regarding this appeal, we make reference to the final
office action (mailed August 18, 2005) and the examiner's answer (mailed March
21, 2006) for the examiner's complete reasoning in support of the rejection and to
the appellant's brief (filed January 23, 2006) and reply brief (filed April 25, 2006)
for the appellant's arguments.
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have carefully considered the
appellant’s specification and claims, the applied prior art, and the respective
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