Appeal No. 97-2904
Application 08/565,457
following new ground of rejection is entered against claim 1:
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Dragstedt in view of Horikawa and the prior
art discussed in the paragraph bridging pages 2 and 3 of
appellant’s specification. Based on our foregoing analysis of
the Dragstedt patent, which we adopt here in our new
rejection, Dragstedt discloses a sheet-advancing apparatus
comprising a transport as defined in the first clause of claim
1. This reference also discloses a controller in the form of
unit 136 which is responsive to inputs to switch the transport
between its two modes of operation as discussed supra.
Although Dragstedt lacks an express teaching of employing
sensors to sense the sheet advancing on the transport, this
reference implicitly discloses a sensing means as claimed for
the reasons stated above.
In any event, as noted supra, Horikawa suggests the
common practice of utilizing sensors to sense the advancement
of a sheet for supplying inputs to a controller in a
reproducing machine. This teaching of Horikawa is reinforced
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