Appeal No. 97-1626
Application 08/299,123
rejection of dependent claims 5-7 and 9 since the additionally
applied Ota reference does not make up for the deficiencies of
Masino discussed above.
Turning to the § 103 rejection of claim 10 as being
unpatentable over Masino in view of Schlegel, admittedly,
Schlegel discloses as a general principle that it is known to
secure together various components of a single conveyor by
means of arms 16, 17 and removable fasteners 18, 25, etc.
However, it is not clear why one of ordinary skill would
consider this teaching to be relevant to Masino’s T-rail, nor
how this teaching is to be applied to Masino in a manner which
would result in the claimed subject matter in the absence of
appellants’ own disclosure. Accordingly, we conclude that the
proposed combination is based on the use of impermissible
hindsight. The rejection of dependent claim 10 therefore also
will not be sustained.
Under the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we enter the
following new rejections.
Claims 1, 3-7, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
112, first paragraph, as being based on a disclosure that
fails to provide descriptive support for the invention as now
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