Appeal No. 1999-0215
Application No. 08/530,282
As explained above, it follows that the “sheet metal
pulley” of appellants’ claim 1 is clearly not readable on the
“composite plastic pulley” of the applied reference. It is
for this reason that the anticipation rejection of claim 1,
and claims 2 through 4 dependent therefrom, must be reversed.
REMAND TO THE EXAMINER
In the present application, appellants include a
description of “Background Art” (specification, pages 1
through 3) and depict prior art sheet metal pulleys in Figs. 3
and 5. Considering the broad language of claim 1, we remand
the application since it appears to us that the examiner
should appropriately evaluate whether claim 1 is anticipated
by, for example, the sheet metal pulley depicted in prior art
Fig. 5, particularly since the claim does not specify that the
outer peripheral portion (tapered shape) is formed in a
downward orientation relative to the inner peripheral portion
and the cylindrical peripheral wall, as shown in Figs. 1 and
2. As to the subject matter of each of claims
2 through 4, the content of these claims should be evaluated
relative to the noted prior art alone or combined with other
prior art teachings, keeping in mind that the showing in Fig.
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