Appeal No. 96-1599
Application 07/968,421
transporting pitch between adjacent transporting
members is established. However, one having
ordinary skill in the assembly line art is deemed to
realize that there is an optimum transporting pitch
between adjacent transporting members which will
maximize the efficiency of the assembly line. Thus,
one having ordinary skill in the art would have
found it obvious to achieve this transporting pitch
so that the assembly line could be operated most
efficiently, since one skilled in the assembly line
art strives for effici-ency. Consequently, one
having ordinary skill in the art would have found it
obvious to modify Hatano by sending the transporting
members off from the start line in accordance with
the assembly man hours required for the pieces to be
assembled such that the most efficient transporting
pitch is attained [answer, page 3].
Rejections based on 35 U.S.C. § 103 must rest on a
factual basis. In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017, 154 USPQ
173, 177-78 (CCPA 1967). In making such a rejection, the
examiner has the
initial duty of supplying the requisite factual basis and may
not, because of doubts that the invention is patentable,
resort to speculation, unfounded assumptions or hindsight
reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual basis.
Id.
In the present case, the examiner concedes that Hatano
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Last modified: November 3, 2007