Appeal No. 2002-1788 Page 20
Application No. 09/217,667
Williams does not render Claims 10 and 13 of the present invention obvious.
Thus, rejection of Claims 10 and 13 under 35 35 U.S.C. § § 103(a) should be
withdrawn and Claims 10 and 13 passed to issue.
Claims 17 and 22 depend from Claim 14 and recite additional limitations
thereto. Claim 14 of the present invention recites a method for initially aligning a
strip material in a friction drive apparatus including the steps of placing the strip
material into the friction drive apparatus and moving the strip material a
predetermined aligning distance in a forward X-axis direction while steering the
strip material with respect to a detection sensor to align the strip material in the
X-axis direction. prior to a work operation based on input from detection sensor.
In contrast to Claims 17 and 22 of the present invention, Williams does
not teach aligning the strip material with respect to a detection sensor based on
input therefrom. Williams also does not teach aligning the strip material while
steering the strip material. Rather, Williams moves, then checks alignment.
Thus, Claims 17 and 22 are not rendered obvious by Williams. Therefore,
rejection of Claims 17 and 22 under 35 35 U.S.C. § § 103(a) should be
withdrawn and Claims 17 and 22 passed to issue.
The above-noted argument advanced by the appellant does not convince us that
the examiner's determination of the obviousness of claims 10, 13, 17 and 22 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 was in error. This argument is unpersuasive for the reasons
expressed above with respect to independent claims 1 and 14. In addition, we note
that the appellant has not challenged the specific determinations of obviousness made
by the examiner in this rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the examiner to reject claims 10,
13, 17 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
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