Appeal 2007-1856
Application 10/808,652
without entry into said aperture.
3. By an Amendment1 dated October 17, 2005, Appellants attempted to
provide support to the Specification for the claim language added in the July 25,
2005 Amendment (FF 2) by amending the Specification to recite:
As shown in Figure 3, the seat 36 includes a convex
surface 36a and a concave surface 38a subtends the
aperture 38. As illustrated, the convex surface 36a and
concave surface 38a have equal radii for enabling a
sealed engagement with one another.
4. In reply to the October 17, 2005 Amendment (FF 3), the non-final Office
Action dated December 6, 2005 states that “the changes to the paragraph on page 5
are all new matter except for the seat having the convex surface. The drawings and
the rest of the original disclosure do not support the concave surface and the equal
radii” (Non-Final Office Action 2).
5. Since the Office Action dated December 6, 2005 does not explicitly
refuse entry of the Amendment to the Specification dated October 17, 2005, it is
unclear from the record whether the Amendment was entered or not.
6. The drawings, as originally filed, show the aperture 38 in Figures 1 and 3
defined by a surface, but the shape of that surface cannot be ascertained.
7. The Examiner found that: (1) Gerondale discloses all the features of
claim 1 except for concave and convex surfaces respectively associated with the
aperture and the seat, and each such surface having equal radii, and (2) it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art “to provide the matching
1 Also submitted with the Amendment dated October 17, 2005 was a replacement
sheet of drawings in which lead lines 36a and 38a were added.
4
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