Appeal No. 1996-2624
Application No. 08/186,352
at the time that appellants made their invention is
insufficient to establish the necessary motivation. One of
the advantages of Bosse's system is the flexibility of
changing the transfer drum speed between transfer stations
without having to replace the cam plate [49]. Bosse
accomplishes this object by adjusting the attachment point of
the coupling member [51] along the longitudinal grove [53] in
rocker arm [50]. We fail to understand why one of ordinary
skill in the art would have been motivated to surrender this
advantage in Bosse's gear system simply because noncircular
planetary gear systems were known.
Since the examiner's proposed combination of Bosse and Katori
would involve a major reconstruction of the Bosse drive system
and would appear to destroy certain desirable advantages
sought by Bosse, we consider that one of ordinary skill in the
art would not have been led by the collective teachings of the
applied references to make the modifications of Bosse urged by
the examiner. In fact, we view the examiner's position to be
based on impermissible hindsight derived from applicants' own
disclosure. Accordingly, we will not sustain the standing 35
U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent claims 1 and 20 based on
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