In re Rau

This is an appeal from the decision of the Board of Appeals of the United States Patent Office affirming the rejection by the Primary Examiner of all the claims in appellant’s application for a patent on a power transmission device.

Claims 3 and 6 are representative of the appealed claims and read:

3. Means for causing mechanical force to be imparted from one to the other of a pair of spaced relatively movable coupling members, said means comprising dry ferromagnetic stainless steel particles disposed in .the space between the coupling members, and means for magnetically exciting the stainless…