Appeal No. 95-0884
Application 07/805,098
We now consider the rejection of claim 1 as being
unpatentable over the teachings of Torii, Camras and Steltzer.
Torii and Camras are applied in the same manner discussed above.
Steltzer teaches a tape drive positioning system in which a lead
screw acts against a carriage having a thread means. Steltzer
teaches the use of a spring 66 for urging a threaded nut 32
attached to the carriage against the lead screw 28 to prevent
vertical backlash and hysteresis between the lead screw and the
threaded nut. The examiner argues that it would have been
obvious to apply the Steltzer teachings to the Torii lead screw
arrangement to arrive at the claimed invention [answer, pages 6-
7]. Appellant responds that the Torii device does not need the
Steltzer backlash and hysteresis preventing operations so that
there would be no motive to combine the teachings of Torii with
Steltzer [second reply brief, page 4]. Appellant also argues
that Steltzer teaches using the spring to urge the threaded nut
against the lead screw rather than urging the lead screw itself
as claimed [second reply brief, pages 4-6].
With respect to the first point raised by appellant, the
motive to combine the teachings of Torii with Steltzer may be
missing as argued by appellant, however, it would appear to us
that the teachings of Torii are unnecessary to support the
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