Appeal No. 97-3752 Page 9
Application No. 08/293,322
1. First, the fact that processing of fish fillets is old and
well known in the butchering art does not, in our opinion,
provide any motivation to one skilled in the art to have used
Townsend's apparatus to process fish fillets instead of ham.
Second, the examiner's statement that the claimed time
sequence is not precluded by Townsend's apparatus provides no
factual basis as to why one skilled in the art would have made
such a modification. Thus, it appears to us that the examiner
has resorted to speculation, unfounded assumption and
hindsight reconstruction to supply deficiencies in the factual
basis for the rejection.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is reversed.
Claims 3 and 4
Independent claims 3 and 4 recite an apparatus
comprising, inter alia, a conveying roller means, a pressing
means, a first knife means and a second knife means. The
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Last modified: November 3, 2007