Appeal No. 98-0985 Page 8
Application No. 08/271,022
We sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 42, 43 and
72-74 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The teachings of Airy and Dalebout are generally set
forth on pages 8-11 of the brief and pages 5-7 of the answer.
The examiner determined (answer, p. 6) that "Airy
discloses the claimed device except for the resistance means
being a friction means." With regard to this difference, the
examiner then determined that
because these two resistance means [the frictional
resistance means of Dalebout and the fluid resistance
means of Airy] were art-recognized equivalents at the
time the invention was made, one of ordinary skill in the
art would have found it obvious to substitute the
frictional resistance means for the fluid resistance
means of Airy.
Implicit in this rejection is the examiner's view that
the above noted modification of Airy would result in a method
which corresponds to the method recited in claims 42, 43 and
72-74 in all respects.
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