Appeal No. 96-3482
Application 08/155,010
Claims 7, 8 and 11 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Ballinger in view of McQuirk.
The rejections are explained in the Examiner's Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellants are set forth in
the Brief and the Reply Brief.
OPINION
The Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 112, First Paragraph
It is the examiner’s position that the specification
provides no support for the recited “means for allowing vertical
movement” and the “means for allowing lateral drift” of the
storage shaft. We agree with the appellants that this is not the
case, noting the description on page 11 of the specification of
shaft slot 49 and lateral drift slot 50, which are shown in
Figure 7.
This rejection is not sustained.
The Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. § 103
The examiner bears the initial burden of presenting a prima
facie case of obviousness (see In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531,
1532, 28 USPQ2d 1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and In re Oetiker,
977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992)),
which is established when the teachings of the prior art itself
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