Stencel, In re
| Decision Date | 02 September 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-1110,87-1110 |
| Citation | 4 USPQ2d 1071,828 F.2d 751 |
| Parties | In re Edgar L. STENCEL, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit |
E. Roderick Cline, Christie, Parker & Hald, Pasadena, Cal., for appellant.
Joseph F. Nakamura, Solicitor, Fred McKelvey, Deputy Solicitor and John W. Dewhirst, Associate Solicitor, Office of the Solicitor, of Arlington, Va., for appellee.
Before FRIEDMAN, NEWMAN, and BISSELL, Circuit Judges.
The decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (Board), rejecting claims 1 through 14 of Stencel patent application Serial No. 250,895 entitled "A Driver for a Lobed Collar" for failure to meet the requirements for patentability set out in 35 U.S.C. Sec. 103, is reversed.
OPINIONThe claimed invention relates to a driver that is adapted to set a joint with a particular threaded lobed collar. The driver turns the collar until, when the collar is tight against the workpiece, the lobes of the collar are deformed by the driver. The collar and the bolt then lock together, and the driver can no longer turn the collar.
Figures 1, 4 and 5 are illustrative, Figure 1 showing the driver body having a deltoid socket, and Figure 4 showing the driver socket on the collar before and Figure 5 after tightening.
Claim 1 is the broadest claim:
1. A driver for setting a joint of a threaded collar, a threaded pin, and at least one sheet, the collar having plastically deformable lobes on its longitudinal exterior that upon the existence of a predetermined clamp-up load between the collar and the sheets plastically deform in radial compression and displace material of the collar into void volumes between the collar and the pin to lock the two together and terminate the action of the driver on the collar, the driver comprising:
(a) a body having a rotational axis;
(b) a socket in the body having a plurality of flats that when cut by radial planes normal to the rotational axis fall on the sides of a regular polygon, the flats being parallel to the rotational axis;
(c) the minimum distance between each flat and the rotational axis corresponding substantially to the radius of the collar at the location of the lobes after their plastic deformation; and
(d) means on the body to receive a wrenching torque applied to the driver so that the flats apply the torque to the lobes of the collar.
The examiner rejected the claims on a combination of two references showing drivers, stating that it would have been obvious to include the flats of Grabovac U.S. Patent No. 3,979,979 in a driver of the type disclosed in Reiland U.S. Patent No. 3,763,725. Reiland shows a driver having a socket with recesses that engage the lobes of a bolthead, shearing them when a predetermined torque is applied to the driver, and leaving a residual portion of the lobes to allow for removal. The Reiland driver is illustrated as follows:
NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE
The Grabovac patent teaches a driver socket having flat sides in its interior, as shown in this figure:
NOTE: OPINION CONTAINS TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE
The Board agreed with appellant Stencel that "there is a fundamental difference between the failure mechanism effected by the driver disclosed in the Reiland patent from that disclosed in the present application", but affirmed the examiner's rejection of the claims because "the claims here are directed to the driver per se and not to the action of the fastener during the tightening procedure."
The Commissioner argues that the failure of the lobes of the collar by radial compression and the resultant locking of the collar and pin together is not a distinguishing feature of the driver, but of the collar. The Commissioner cites In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 195 USPQ 430 (CCPA 1977), and In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 169 USPQ 226 (CCPA 1971), for the proposition that the description of the driver in the claims is merely functional, and that its patentability must be determined against all embodiments of drivers in the prior art.
Appellant points out that the driver as claimed is indeed limited as to structure, the limiting structure being defined by the structure of the collar. For example, the driver is described in claim 1 as requiring: "the minimum...
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