Appeal No. 96-4172
Application 08/098,594
subject matter of the claims on appeal. Therefore, the rejection
of these claims on obviousness grounds is reversed. Additionally,
pursuant to our authority under 37 CFR § 1.196(b), this Board
enters rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first and second
paragraphs.
It is the examiner’s finding of fact that Widgren teaches a
means for “forming, tempering, flattening, bending, and cooling
the helical springs” (examiner’s answer, page 3).
Apparently, this finding comes from the first sentence of
Widgren’s specification. However, we must note that Widgren
relates to forming and tempering a helical spring only to the
extent that the spring is formed by flattening the end coil
portions so that the ends of the spring lie in a transverse plane
to the spring’s axis. See column 2, lines 5 through 16. In
fact, Widgren does not disclose forming a coil spring from a rod
stock. The fact that Widgren is only concerned with flattening
the ends of the spring and not coiling the stock can be seen with
reference to column 1 of page 3, lines 69 through 73. Therein,
Widgren discusses that the spring is formed by flattening the
ends. We further note that the Hobracht patent which deals with
leaf springs and the British patent to BMW also are not concerned
with coiling a proto-spring from a rod stock. Thus, the combined
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