Appeal No. 2001-1596
Application 09/296,102
claims 1 to 14 were allowed in the first Office action (Paper No.
7, Nov. 19, 1996). The claims allowed were as originally filed,
except for a few minor amendments made by the examiner with the
authorization of appellants’ attorney.1 Page 3 of the action
included the following paragraph:
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for
allowance: The prior art of record does not disclose or
render obvious a motivation to provide for a powertrain as
defined by the limitations of claim 1, including an internal
combustion engine and a generator both connected to a
differential and all three are aligned on a first axis, the
electric motor aligned on a second parallel axis, a counter
shaft aligned on a third axis having a gear which meshing
[sic: meshes] with the second gear of the motor and the
first gear of the differential and which countershaft is
also connected to an output differential mounted on a fourth
axis, and the third axis is inside a triangle defined by the
first, second and fourth axes viewed on end.
Appellants were then advised that “[a]ny comments considered
necessary by applicant [sic] must be submitted no later than the
payment of the issue fee” (action, page 4).
In the present reissue application, appellants seek to
delete from patent claim 1 the language underlined above, and to
include it in a new dependent claim 15, appellants asserting in
1
1The examiner inserted –-powertrain–- after “hybrid vehicle”
in the preamble of each of claims 1 to 14; changed “said” in line
13 of claim 1 to –-an output–-; inserted -–output–- after “first
and second axes, said” in line 20 of claim 1; and inserted
–-output–- after “for driving said” in line 2 of claim 2.
3
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