Appeal No. 97-1147
Application 08/349,087
the
centrifugal clutch therein as proposed by the examiner. The
mere
fact that one of ordinary skill in the art, once informed of
the desirability of making a magnetic decoupling means of the
type defined in appellants' claims on appeal, could achieve
this result through the application of routine skill in the
art, provides no evidence that such a modification would have
been obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art at the time
of appellants' invention, absent reliance upon appellants' own
disclosure. Moreover, as appellants have pointed out on page
11 of their brief, the examiner's proposed modification of the
clutch in Kagiyama would appear to be contrary to the express
teachings of that patent regarding the desired simplicity of
construction, reduced numbers of parts, and inexpensive
manufacturing discussed therein (see Col. 1, lines 21-25 of
Kagiyama).
From our perspective, only hindsight based on appellants'
own teachings would have provided any reason for one of
ordinary skill in the art to consider a modification in the
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