Appeal No. 96-3555
Application No. 08/297,021
as defined by independent claim 51 would have been obvious to one
of ordinary skill in the art at the time of appellants'
invention. Thus, we regard the examiner's application of the
teachings of Sastri and Tardoskegyi to be mere surplusage. 5
Grefe discloses an apparatus for treating razor blades. The
apparatus includes a blade holder 68 that will permit the stack
of blades to riffle/flutter. A conveyor chain 22 moves the6
blade holder in the washer section 24 and dryer section 26.7
The examiner determined that Grefe failed to disclose moving
the stack of blades through a pre-wash station, a wash station, a
rinse station and a final rinse station and circulating the rinse
and final rinse water to the pre-wash and rinse stations,
respectively (answer, p. 4).
5The examiner relied on Sastri for a teaching of
demagnetizing a razor blade and relied on Tardoskegyi for a
teaching of an air curtain (answer, pp. 4-5). However, these
features are not recited in claim 51.
6See column 5, lines 11-21 and 67-73, of Grefe.
7See Figures 3-6 of Grebe.
8
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