Appeal No. 2006-2154 Page 8
Application No. 10/786,998
valve seat and slide plate of the disc slide valve. The appellant argues that
Berchem ‘004 teaches that the valve seat and slide plate must be made of different
materials to prevent adhesion between them. (Brief, p. 4)
A reference may be said to teach away when a person of
ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be
discouraged from following the path set out in the
reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from
the path that was taken by the applicant. The degree of
teaching away will of course depend on the particular
facts; in general, a reference will teach away if it suggests
that the line of development flowing from the reference's
disclosure is unlikely to be productive of the result
sought by the applicant.
In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553, 31 USPQ2d 1130, 1131 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
Berchem ‘004 is directed to solving a problem of adhesion of a movable
valve element to a valve seat in shutoff and control valves (Berchem ‘004, col. 1,
lines 52-54). Berchem ‘004 teaches, “adhesion [of the valve seat and the valve
element] depend[s] upon the fluid medium traversing the valve” (Berchem ‘004,
col. 1, lines 54-56). The solution proposed by Berchem ‘004 is to use different
materials for the valve element and the valve seat. The teaching from Berchem
‘004 at issue in this case states,
I have found, most surprisingly, that while two low-
roughness surfaces of the same engineering ceramic will
develop the detrimental adhesion between them, when
different engineering ceramics are paired in contact, the
detrimental adhesion practically is eliminated. (Berchem
‘004, col. 2, lines 37-41.)
purpose.”
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