Appeal No. 96-4007
Application No. 08/294,769
The appellant's argument (brief, pp. 3 and 5) that Beidler's
conveyor does not operate continuously during loading is
unpersuasive. Nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking
the references individually when the rejection is predicated upon
a combination of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co.
Inc., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
The appellant's argument (brief, pp. 3-4) that if one
skilled in the art were to combine Beidler and Keller, one would
not arrive at the claimed invention since one would employ
Keller's two-part cradles is unpersuasive. In that regard, we
agree with the examiner that Keller's two-part cradles (e.g.,
members 25 and 26) are part of the transfer means 12 used for
loading Keller's gripper chains 42 and that it is Keller's
gripper jaws 53 and 54, not the two-part cradles, which an
artisan would consider as corresponding to Beidler's grippers.
Thus, in contrast to the appellant's view, it is our opinion that
Keller's two-part cradles would not have provided any suggestion
to an artisan to modify Beidler's grippers.
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