Appeal No. 2003-1653
Application No. 09/828,102
tractor. The ramp includes a flared apron 22 mounted to the
vehicle via a toggle arm arrangement 28, 29, having a lever 33
which, when contacted by a shoulder 14 adjacent the loop 13,
causes the toggle arm arrangement to move from an over-center
condition supporting the apron 22 in an upright inclined
orientation (see Figure 2) to a collapsed folded condition
allowing the apron to give way such that the loop 13 drops over
the hook fitting 15 (see Figure 3).
Likening Allard’s lever 33 to a support arm, the examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious in view of Allard to
modify the hitch structure disclosed by Schrum such that pivoting
of the support arm (release arm 24) from a rest position to a
support position causes the support arm to contact the ramp (flat
base plate 32) and move the ramp from a rest position to a
support position, “in order to provide a means to move the ramp
from its rest position to its support position in a single
maneuver” (final rejection, page 7). Allard’s lever 33, however,
has little, if any, practical relevance to Schrum’s release arm
24, and would not have furnished the artisan with any motivation
or suggestion, let alone the one advanced by the examiner, to
modify the Schrum system so as to arrive at an assembly meeting
the subject limitations in claim 32.
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