Appeal No. 2006-1815
Application No. 10/178,767
following revolution of the cam mechanism, as set forth in claim 1 on appeal.
According to the examiner, otherwise there would be no need for the pin shown in
Shinohara for anchoring each washer in its respective washer chamber.
In the examiner’s view, the only question to be answered is whether one of
ordinary skill in the art would understand the need for a second pin for holding the
thrust bearing of Shinohara in place. The examiner urges that Higginbotham
answers that question by indicating (e.g., at col. 4, lines 36-42) that one of ordinary
skill, dealing with pins holding thrust bearings in place, would preferably use two
pins (even though only one is shown). From this, the examiner concludes that since
Shinohara has a thrust bearing with a pin holding it in place, and Higginbotham
teaches using two pins to hold a thrust bearing in place, it is appropriate to apply
the teaching of Higginbotham to the pump of Shinohara (final rejection, pages 2-
3).
After a consideration of the collective teachings of the applied patents, we must
agree with appellant that there is no reasonable teaching, suggestion or motivation
in either Shinohara or Higginbotham, considered individually or collectively, for
making the particular combination asserted by the examiner. More particularly, we
find nothing in these patents to establish that applying a second securing pin to
each of the thrust washers of Shinohara would have been a matter of “engineering
expediency,” as urged by the examiner. In the final analysis, it is our view that the
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