Appeal No. 2005-0722
Application No. 09/749,361
and 50 only applies to at least the sheet being picked
from the stack and not to the sheets already removed
from the stack. These statements mean that the
reference discloses or fairly suggests to one of
ordinary skill in the art that one of the contemplated
embodiments of the document processing machine of the
PCT document [i.e., the Mylaeus international
application] has a drive apparatus associated with the
first and second feeding apparatuses to continuously
drive the article in the first direction against the
registration wall 20 while simultaneously feeding the
article in the second direction for at least part of
their operating cycle [answer, pages 3 and 4].
The examiner’s position here is completely untenable. To
begin with, the question of whether a reference would have
suggested a claimed invention is not germane to the issue of
anticipation. Anticipation lies only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In the present case, Mylaeus does not
disclose, either expressly or inherently, an article feeding
apparatus comprising a drive apparatus “to continuously drive the
article in the first direction . . . while simultaneously feeding
the article in the second direction” as recited in claim 13. The
examiner’s determination that the Mylaeus drive 60 continuously
drives an article (sheet 11) in a first direction (transport
6
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