Appeal No. 2006-1877
Application 10/434,931
Regarding claim 4, the spring member (69) is disposed “over,” i.e., above, the post and ball
(45, 46).
Responsive to appellant’s argument bridging pages 2 and 3 of the brief, we share the
examiner’s view that one of ordinary skill in the art would have perceived the ADR seen in
Harrington as being configured to allow essentially the same natural movement as the disc it
is replacing, and thus as being capable of vertical movement when subjected to axial
compression forces, rotational movement about the longitudinal axis of the post (45), and
pivotal movement about the pivot ball (46), thereby constituting a joint having a center of
rotation. See page 4 of the answer for the examiner’s explanation of this aspect of the
rejection.
As for appellant’s commentary regarding dependent claim 4, we agree with the examiner
that the language of claim 4 requiring the spring to be “disposed over a post” is broad
enough to encompass either of the examiner’s positions set forth above concerning
Harrington.
Turning to dependent claim 6, we note that this claim sets forth the limitation that the
joint of claim 1 is spherical. On page 4 of the answer, the examiner has stated that appellant
has no clear support in the specification for this limitation, and concludes that such limitation
should be given its broadest reasonable interpretation based on what is set forth in
appellant’s disclosure. Thus, the examiner has concluded that to the extent the
embodiments of appellant’s Figures 21A, 21B, 25A, 25B and 25D show a joint which is
spherical, so too does the patent to Harrington. That is, since Harrington shows a pivot ball
(46), it defines a joint which is broadly spherical. We agree with the examiner, especially
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Last modified: November 3, 2007