Appeal No. 2006-1538
Application No. 09/782,915
particularly, appellant points out that the wedging/clamping
devices (20) of Matthews, pointed to by the examiner, are
specifically designed and used for securing the knife blade (5)
of Matthews’ paper cutter in the trough (2) of the cylindrical
revolver (4), while it is the pusher-part knife supports (30)
that are used to adjust the position of the knife blade relative
to the trough (2). See column 3, lines 1-60, and Figures 1-3 of
Matthews. Thus, appellant urges that the wedging/clamping
devices (20) of Matthews perform the function of the clamping
jaws (19) of Basteck and would therefore not have been viewed by
one of ordinary skill in the art as a replacement for the cutter
adjusting devices (32, 37) used in Basteck’s machine reamer to
adjust the position of the cutter insert (18) longitudinally of
the guide slot (17). The essence of appellant’s argument is that
the examiner has improperly used hindsight in an attempt to
reconstruct the claimed invention from disparate teachings in the
prior art. A careful review of the Basteck and Matthews patents
shows that appellant is correct in his assessment of the § 103
rejection before us on appeal.
In light of the foregoing, the rejection of independent
claim 1, and of claims 2 through 7 which depend therefrom, under
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