Appeal No. 97-0750
Application 08/329,219
was first raised in the final rejection (Paper No. 4) in a
slightly different form (i.e., as relating to new matter), but
has nonetheless been specifically responded to in appellant's
brief at page 5, where appellant presents arguments to support
the proposition that the original disclosure was adequate to
support claim 6. Thus, the mere fact that the examiner has now
denominated this rejection as a "NEW GROUND" of rejection in the
answer did not, in our view, compel appellant to respond by way
of a reply brief, when such issue had already been treated in
the brief. In reviewing this rejection, we have considered the
originally-filed disclosure of appellant's application from the
perspective of one of ordinary skill in the art. With such
perspective, we must agree with appellant (brief, page 5) that
the artisan, considering Figures 1 and 2 of the application and
the fact that the invention therein is specifically indicated to
be an improvement over U.S. Patent No. 5,299,906, would have
understood that the scissors linkage members (20, 22) are
pivotally connected to the platform (12) and base (16) at one end
only, as clearly evident from Figures 1 and 2, and that the
opposite end of each of the link members is supported by a roller
(as in U.S. Patent No. 5,299,906 and as depicted by phantom
6
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