Appeal No. 96-1678
Application 08/322,731
in the form of core gripping pins 17, carriages 18 riding on
guides 19, and thrust motors 20 for controlling the contact
pressure between support rollers 11, 12 and wound roll 14. In
addition, we are in accord with the examiner (answer, page 8)
that both of these arrangements perform substantially the same
function. Where we part company with the examiner, however, is
in the examiner’s assertion that it would have been obvious to
the ordinarily skilled artisan to provide the arrangement of
Scheuter in Röder as a supplement thereto because “[o]ne of
ordinary skill in the art would have recognized the limitation in
the upward force created by the air pressure and the
effectiveness of the sealing elements [of Röder] if the roll size
increases beyond a certain size” (answer, page 9).
The examiner has pointed to nothing in the collective
teachings of the references themselves, nor provided a logical
line of reasoning, to support the proposition that the ordinarily
skilled artisan would have found the Röder arrangement to be
ineffective for its stated purpose. Accordingly, the examiner’s
position as to the motivation for supplementing the contact
pressure control arrangement of Röder with that of Scheuter is
sheer speculation. From our perspective, Röder and Scheuter
merely teach alternative arrangements for accomplishing a given
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