Appeal No. 97-2547
Application 07/949,042
The method disclosed by DeHart meets all of the
limitations in claim 48 except for the one requiring the
contents to be conveyed between the separating station and the
work station along a path with “the greater portion of the
path length being horizontal.” The appellants’ arguments to
the contrary (see pages 3 through 5 in the main brief, Paper
No. 36, and pages 1 and 2 in the reply brief, Paper No. 38)
are not convincing for the reasons discussed above and in our
earlier decision with regard to claim 21.
Russell discloses a method for opening envelopes wherein
the envelopes are fed, one at a time, through an apparatus
which separates the top and bottom panels of the envelopes
along three sides and lays the top panel back so as to expose
the contents. The opened envelopes are then sequentially
delivered to an elongate conveyor 15 which extends past a
series of desks 16 for sorting by personnel positioned at each
of the desks (see, for example, column 5, lines 9 through 19;
and column 7, line 60 through column 8, line 4). As shown in
Figure 1, the conveyor 15 carries the envelopes and their
contents from the opening apparatus to the sorting desks along
a horizontally disposed path.
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