Appeal No. 97-0746
Application 08/135,883
reference). We therefore must reverse the § 102 (b) rejection
of claims 1 and 2.
With regard to the examiner’s § 103 rejection of claims 1
and 2 based on Figures 1 and 7 of the Pfister patent, the
examiner is understood to conclude that it would have been
obvious to replace Pfister’s one piece cross shaft 142 with a
two piece assembly corresponding to the patentee’s embodiment
of Figure 1 “to enable independent adjustment” (answer, page
5). Pfister’s separate shaft assemblies (42, 82), however, are
not employed to provide “independent adjustment” as suggested
by the examiner. Instead, these shaft assemblies are separable
to enable the wheel assemblies 40L and 40R to be collapsed for
storage in the manner shown in Figure 5 of Pfister’s drawings.
In any event, even if Pfister’s embodiment of Figure 7 were
modified in the
manner proposed by the examiner, the modified structure still
would not meet the terms of claim 1 because in both of the
patentee’s embodiments, the cross shaft structure is fixed to
the mid region of the vertical frame 12, not to the lower end
thereof as required by claim 1.
5
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