Appeal No. 2004-1227
Application No. 09/940,311
of maintaining the chain on the sprocket. It follows that the
Tada patent contains no teaching or suggestion for utilizing the
guide links disclosed therein on the chain of Figures 20 and 21
as proposed by the examiner.
Apparently, the examiner believes an artisan would have been
motivated to provide the chain of Figures 20 and 21 with guide
links of the type taught by Tada “so as to improve structural
strength and integrity of said chain in at least the longitudinal
direction of said chain” (Answer, page 4). Significantly, the
prior art applied by the examiner contains no evidence that an
artisan would have made the provision in question in order “to
improve structural strength and integrity” (Id). Instead, it is
only the appellants who teach such desiderata with respect to use
of guide links of the type here claimed rather than the retainer
rings 69 of the Figures 20 and 21 chain (e.g., see pages 7-9 of
the subject specification).
Under the circumstances recounted above, it is our
determination that the examiner has unwittingly formulated the
rejection before us based upon impermissible hindsight derived
from the appellants’ own disclosure rather than some teaching,
suggestion or incentive derived from the applied prior art.
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