Appeal No. 97-3214
Application No. 08/280,369
tools to be rotated to a position at the outer edge of the pass
line, whereupon it could be accessed for service while the other
tools remain over the active position (see Figure 11). It also
is material to our analysis that Graf is not concerned with the
problem of moving a component out of the material pass line to
provide an unobstructed path for another to be moved in and out.
Brand teaches moving the coils of sheet material being fed
to an operating station transversely with respect to a stationary
work station. This amounts to the opposite of the theory of
operation of appellant’s invention. Also, the problems solved by
Brand differ from those of the appellant’s invention.
Matsunaga solves the same problem as the appellant’s
invention, but does so by moving the thread sled upstream along
the material pass line, rather than transversely, as in the
appellant’s invention. We fail to perceive any teaching,
suggestion or incentive in the applied prior art which would have
led one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the Matsunaga
system by moving the thread sled transversely “out of” the
material pass line to an “inactive position” with respect
thereto. Graf’s teaching of moving a punch tool transversely
across a material pass line would not, in our view, have
suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that the movement
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