Appeal No. 96-3441
Application 08/137,868
The examiner concedes that the Field roll mill arrangement
does not meet the limitation in independent claim 9 requiring the
operator’s side roll mount to be adapted to move away from the
drive side roll mount (see page 3 in the answer, Paper No. 13).
As indicated above, Field’s side roll mounts are joined to one
another in a unitary rigid structure and there is no suggestion
that one can be moved relative to the other.
Tajima discloses a rolling mill arrangement having a drive
side roll mount in the form of driving side housing 4 and an
operator side roll mount in the form of operating side housing 5.
The operator side housing is adapted to be moved toward and away
from the drive side housing to accommodate different roll
assemblies for producing differently shaped products.
According to the examiner,
[i]t would have been obvious to one having ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to
adapt the operator’s side roll mount in [Field] to move
away from the drive side roll mount. One skilled in
the art is considered to be motivated to use an
operator’s side roll mount which is adapted to move
away from the drive side roll mount to enable the
production of diverse product shapes, as shown to be
desirable by [Tajima] [answer, page 4].
The appellants, on the other hand, argue that
[b]oth references are directed to solving of the same
problem, namely, to provide for rolling of differently
shaped products . . . . This problem is solved in
[Tajima] by making the operator’s side roll mount
-4-
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Last modified: November 3, 2007