461 F.2d 1387 | C.C.P.A. | 1972
This appeal is from the decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals affirming the rejection under 35 USC103 of claims 1,2, and 23-25 in appellant’s application entitled “Process and Apparatus for Making Plates,” serial No. 351, 758, filed March 13, 1964, but claiming the benefit of the March 15, 1963, filing date of appellant’s French application PY 928,147. We affirm.
The Subject Matter Claimed
Appellant’s claims recite methods of continuously making curved, rigid articles from composite webs of flexible fabric, glass fibers, and hardenable polymer resins. Appellant terms these articles “plates.” They appear to be large structural shapes rather than tableware. Claim 1, subdivided for clarity, is representative:
1. A method of continously forming shaped plates which comprises
applying to a moving first flexible fabric bandp] a layer of glass fibers,
applying a layer of hardenable polymerizable resin to the layer of glass fibers on the band,
applying a second flexible fabric band [1 ] to the layer of polymerizable resin and fibers to form a composite web,
bending the so-formed web on a curved support, to an arcuate shape about an axis transverse to its length while
polymerizing and hardening the polymerizable resin on the curved support, and
cutting a length from the hardened, arcuate web to form a plate.
The other claims add the step of bending the web about its longitudinal axis prior to bending it about its transverse axis, and claims 24 and 25 recite that the resin is thermosetting and that it is hardened by heating.
Appellant’s specification describes an embodiment of his invention shown in Fig. 1:
Surface 22 of the “cylinder”
Appellant’s specification concedes that the first three steps of the process of claim 1 were known in the prior art, and at oral argument his counsel stressed repeatedly that the step of polymerizing the sheets while they are still on the cylinder is the heart of the invention. Accordingly, we will focus primarily on that feature of the claims.
The References
Chamberlain_ 2,734,245 Feb. 14,1956
Finger et al. (Finger)_ 3,071,180 Jan. 1,1963
Graff et al. (Graff)_ 3,226,458 Dec. 28,1965 (filed Dec. 28, 1961)
Basmussen (Denmark)_ 72,628 published Juné 11, 1951
Steffenino (France)_ 969,204 published Dec. 15, 1950
Steffenino teaches that a sheet of “fibrous materials, with or without synthetic resin binders, adhesive or agglomerating varnishes,” may be “obtained in a continuous manner by introducing it between at least two rotating, calendering or rolling rolls or cylinders, and applying a pressure with heating to the temperature necessary to assure the cure or polymerization of the resinous binder.” Fig. 4, below, shows the sheet “emerging still hot and flexible from the last pair of cylinders” and being bent on a curved support 10 to an arcuate shape about an axis transverse to its length. Steffenino does not specifically teach that the hardened, arcuate web should be cut into lengths, but it does refer to the product of the process as “elements or panels,” and, since the production process is stated to be “continuous,” the sheet would have to be cut to produce such elements.
Finger discloses apparatus for continuously producing corrugated panels of thermosetting resin and glass fibers sandwiched between flexible films. The corrugations are placed in the web of resin, fibers, and flexible film by bending it about its longitudinal axis prior to thermosetting the resin, and the web is hardened while still on the corrugation-producing guides. Thereafter, the “hard, strong and solid mass” is cut into lengths. However, Finger does not suggest bending the corrugated web about its transverse axis.
Chamberlain discloses apparatus capable of progressively bending a continuous strip of “a plastic such as a clay composition” to produce “a succession of individual articles of complex form” — i.e., bent both longitudinally and transversely.
Easmussen discloses a “machine for treating pleated paper so that the pleating is longitudinally curved * * The paper is first pleated and then bent to an arcuate shape on a curved support.
The Rejection
The examiner rejected claim 1 as being unpatentable under 35' TJSC 103 over Steffenino in view of Finger, Graff, and Chamberlain. It was his position that Steffenino teaches applicant’s “method of continuously making curved panels from resin impregnated fibrous material by first forming the panel and then curving or bending it on a curved support to an arcuate shape about an exis transverse to its length,” that it teaches hardening during the shaping step since the resin is apparently cooling as it passes over the curved support 10 in Fig. 4, but that, if it does not, Finger and Graff do, and that Finger and Chamberlain teach how to cut the hardened, shaped panels into sections of appropriate length.
The examiner rejected the remaining claims on two theories, so far as we are concerned. First, he rejected them on the above references plus Easmussen on the theory that Easmussen “teaches that it is old to corrugate panels and then to bend the panels to an arcuate form to achieve a decorative effect.” Second, relying only on the references applied to claim 1, he reasoned that, “since Finger teaches that reinforced panels may be corrugated [,] it would be obvious to' use such reinforced panels in the arcuate shaping step of Steffenino and then to cut into sections as taught by Finger or Chamberlain.”
The board affirmed the rejections for the reasons stated by the examiner. In response to appellant’s argument that “certain of the references shape different materials and are therefore in nonanalogous arts,” the board stated that it “regard [ed] prior art processes of shaping materials in analogous arts even though the specific materials may in some instances be different.”
Opinion
We affirm the rejection of claims 1,2, and 23-25 on the basis that the combination of the four primary references, resulting in a web bent about both its transverse and longitudinal axes, would have been
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the board is affirmed.
The specification states that appellant’s “flexible fabric band” Is, In practice, “a pellicle of material such as regenerated cellulose * *
Actually, the surface of the “cylinder” may be corrugated, so It Is not necessarily a true cylinder.