Appeal No. 96-4007
Application No. 08/294,769
Thereby, in accordance with 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7), we have
determined that dependent claims 2, 4, 5, 16 and 17 must be
treated as falling with independent claims 1 and 9. Thus, it
follows that the examiner's standing § 103 rejection of claims 2,
4, 5, 16 and 17 is also sustained.
Considering next the standing § 103 rejection of dependent
claims 3, 6 and 7, we agree with the appellant that the
limitations recited in these claims are not met by the combined
teachings of Beidler and Keller. With respect to claim 3, the
combined teachings of Beidler and Keller fail to teach or suggest
a conveyance system wherein a workpiece is loaded as the gripping
member traverses a first arc of a greater radius than a second
arc and the workpiece is offloaded as the gripping member
traverses the second arc. While Beidler does disclose the
loading and unloading of workpieces at different arcs, as stated
by the examiner, the arcs provided by the upstream and downstream
sprocket wheels of Beidler have the same radius as shown in
Figure 1. While Keller suggests sprocket wheels 45, 46 having
arcs of different radiuses, Keller clearly suggests loading the
workpiece as the gripper jaws 53, 54 traverse the arc of the
sprocket wheels 45 having the smaller radius. With respect to
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