Appeal No. 1997-0595 Page 13
Application No. 08/154,911
of rollers, it is our opinion that the teachings of D'Angelo
would not have suggested replacing Johnson's guide rod 148
with a conveyor having a series of rollers. In our view, the
only suggestion for modifying Johnson in the manner proposed
by the examiner to meet the above-noted limitations stems from
hindsight knowledge derived from the appellant's own
disclosure. The use of such hindsight knowledge to support an
obviousness rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 103 is, of course, impermissible. See, for
example, W. L. Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721
F.2d 1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984). It follows that we cannot
sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 5 to 7.
Claims 1, 2 and 8 include the limitation that the "pad-
transferring assembly" is mounted to the frame downstream of
the cutting assembly and "pulls the cut pad away from the
cutting assembly." In our view, this limitation clearly is
not taught by Johnson or suggested from the combined teachings
of Johnson and D'Angelo. In that regard, while D'Angelo does
teach a conveyor that pulls a cut product away from the
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