Appeal No. 97-2605
Application 08/272,782
assumptions or hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in
the factual basis. Id. Here, the examiner has improperly relied
on speculation and unfounded assumption, rather than facts, to
supply the acknowledged deficiency in the Japanese ‘291 reference
with respect to the subject matter recited in claim 8.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection
of this claim, or of claims 5 and 9 which depend therefrom, as
being unpatentable over the Japanese ‘291 reference.
As for the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection based on the Japanese
‘291 reference in view of any one of the Japanese ‘651, ‘654 or
‘655 references, the examiner states that
[the Japanese ‘651, ‘654 or ‘655 reference]
teaches at least one weld joint adjacent the camshaft
opening in order to join the cam to [the] shaft.
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
use at least one weld joint adjacent the camshaft
opening in order to [join] the cam layers of the
[Japanese ‘291 reference] as suggested by [the Japanese
‘651, ‘654 or ‘655 reference] [final rejection, pages 5
and 6].
The problem here, however, is that none of the Japanese
‘651, ‘654 or ‘655 references supports the examiner’s conclusion.
As indicated above, these secondary references teach the use of
weld joints to affix one-piece cams to their camshafts. Such
teachings would not have provided the artisan with any suggestion
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