Appeal No. 96-3024
Application 08/183,856
out the chain and sprocket mechanism from the dumping body of
Hardy and incorporate that mechanism into Stoll’s completely
disparate arrangement of a retractable ramp and, from our
perspective, the examiner has impermissibly relied upon the
appellant’s own teachings for a suggestion to combine the
references to Stoll and Hardy in the manner proposed.
We also observe that providing a ramp with a lifting
mechanism was the main thrust of Stoll’s invention (see column 1,
lines 34-36) and, in making the proposed combination, the
examiner seeks to attach the link arms 40 (a part of the lifting
mechanism) to a flexible chain incorporated from the dumping body
Hardy. It is not clear, however, that if these link arms 40 were
attached to flexible members, such as Hardy’s chains, that the
lifting mechanism would even function (or at least function well)
in its intended manner, thus perhaps destroying that upon which
Stoll’s invention was based. See Ex parte Hartmann, 186 USPQ
366, 367 (Bd. App. 1974). This, in our view, would provide even
more reason why one of ordinary skill in this art would not have
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