Appeal 2007-0266
Application 09/929,227
1 rather than the knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art. This is a
2 second reason why the Declaration does not establish that the Friemann reference
3 is not an enabling disclosure.
4 Before turning to the obviousness rejection, we make one other point dealing
5 with the scope of the claimed subject matter. The Friemann reference discloses that
6 the saw blade can be stopped within 5 milliseconds or within 10 milliseconds.
7 This is the time that it takes to stop the saw blade. Appellants’ claims are directed
8 to the time it will take to move the brake component into engagement with the
9 cutting tool. The claims are silent with respect to stopping the blade. Claim 31 is
10 even more distinguishable from the 5 milliseconds of Friemann in that in claim 31
11 the actuator starts moving the component within 3 milliseconds. Thus, as claimed,
12 it may indeed take an additional 2 milliseconds to stop the blade, if moving the
13 brake started at 3 milliseconds. The point is that Friemann completely stops the
14 blade in 5 milliseconds, whereas, as claimed, Appellants only start the stopping
15 process within 3 milliseconds. Thus, the Examiner’s argument that the 3
16 millisecond and 5 millisecond time periods are substantially similar is well taken.
17 Despite the foregoing, however, we reverse the rejections of the claims on
18 appeal. In our view, the Examiner has not cited any prior art that shows an
19 actuator having stored energy sufficient to move the brake component to stop the
20 saw band disclosed in Friemann. We are in agreement with Dr. Turcic that it takes
21 substantial energy to stop the band brakes of Yoneda and Friemann. Any
22 capacitors in the circuitry of Yoneda and Friemann are merely electronic
23 components and do not store energy to move the respective actuators. With
24 respect to Andreasson, we acknowledge that Andreasson uses a capacitor to
25 energize the electromagnetic saw brake. However, the amount of energy to stop a
7
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