APPLICATION OF KULIEKE, Patent Appeal No. 6522.

• Decision Date: 03 May 1960
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 6522.
• Citation: 277 F.2d 948
• Parties: In re Application of Frederick C. KULIEKE.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

277 F.2d 948 (1960)

In re Application of Frederick C. KULIEKE.

Patent Appeal No. 6522.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

May 3, 1960.

Walter L. Schlagel, Jr., Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Clarence W. Moore, Washington, D. C. (Raymond E. Martin, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for the Commissioner of Patents.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, and RICH, MARTIN, and SMITH, Associate Judges, and Judge FRANCIS L. VAN DUSEN.¹

SMITH, Judge.

Appellant filed application Serial No. 394,547 on November 27, 1953, as a divisional application based on his application Serial No. 182,003 which issued as U. S. Patent No. 2,688,412 on September 7, 1954. The issued patent relates to a coupler knuckle casting. Claims 15-20, inclusive, which are here on appeal, relate to a core mold assembly for use in casting coupler knuckles.

Appellant here appeals from the decision of the Board of Appeals affirming the examiner's rejection of the appealed claims. We agree with the board that claims 15 and 19 are fairly illustrative of all the claims on appeal. These claims read as follows:

"15. A railway coupler knuckle core assembly, comprising a pin hole core having an enlarged central portion having one flattened side but otherwise being generally circular, said flattened side being disposed at such location that the distance from the central axis to the flattened side is substantially less than a radius but the difference in mass of the central portion relative to full cylindrical shape is minor, the pin hole core having projections at its ends for support by associated cope and drag mold sections, respectively, and a knuckle tail core having a support lug at its rear end and having a tongue and groove interlock at its front end with said enlarged central portion of the pin hole core at a location displaced circumferentially from said flattened side.

"19. A pin hole core for a coupler knuckle mold having an enlarged central portion with one flattened side but otherwise being generally circular, said flattened side being disposed at such location that the distance from the central axis to the flattened side is substantially less than a radius but the difference in mass relative to full cylindrical shape is minor, the pin hole core having projections at its ends for support by associated cope and drag mold sections, respectively."

The invention disclosed and claimed in the application which forms the basis of this appeal relates to a mold and core structure and arrangement for use in casting knuckles for the American Association of Railroads' Standard E Couplers. Such a knuckle comprises nose and tail sections interconnected by an intermediate section or throat which is of relatively narrow cross-sectional area, compared to the nose and tail sections. Coupler knuckles of this type have been produced by casting for many years, and certain molding practices have become commonplace. One of these practices has been the provision of a core for the purpose of lightening the coupler knuckle casting by forming a central cavity.

Appellant asserts he discovered that the weaknesses inherent in prior art knuckle castings occurred as a result of the existing knuckle mold coring practices and that these problems could be overcome by a mold coring arrangement wherein the forward end of the knuckle tail core is supported by the knuckle pin hole core, with the rear end of the knuckle tail core being supported by the mold itself. By supporting the forward end of the tail core by the pin hole core, appellant asserts that the need for supporting the tail core intermediate its ends was eliminated. This also eliminated the top and bottom holes in the knuckle tail section which had previously been formed by the core prints which supported the knuckle tail core.

All of the appealed claims are directed to a mold, a core assembly, or a component thereof and call for a pin hole core having an enlarged central portion generally circular, but with one flattened side disposed a distance from the central axis which is less than the radius but wherein the difference in mass relative to the full cylindrical shape is minor, and also including projections on the pin hole core for supporting the core in the mold.

Claims 16 and 20 are further limited to an arrangement wherein one of the projections is non-symmetrical about the longitudinal axis of the core.

Claim 18, in addition to containing the above limitations, is further limited to an arrangement including a knuckle tail core having support at one end solely by a lug carried by the mold drag and having sole support at the other end of said core by a tongue and groove interlock with the enlarged portion of the pin hole core at a location displaced circumferentially from the flattened side of the pin hole core.

Claim 17 is further limited to an arrangement wherein the tongue and groove interlock between the pin hole core and the tail core is of minor dimension relative to that of the enlarged central portion, and of the knuckle tail core, in a direction longitudinally of the pin hole core.

The references relied upon are:

Meyer 1,999,511 April 30, 1935; Wessel 2,249, 146 Oct. 14, 1947; Mayer, (German) 735,764 May 5, 1943.

Appellant has asserted that Kulieke patent No. 2,688,412 is not a proper...