Appeal No. 1996-3506
Application 08/178,439
injection means and the conductive transfer member” (brief-
page 7), and that there is no motivation to combine Nishio and
Hosoya, to do so requires impermissible hindsight.
The Examiner’s position is that Nishio describes the
developing section of an electrophotographic recording
apparatus which is the same as Appellants’, and absent any
disclosed transfer section one must look elsewhere for
appropriate transfer sections. Looking at Hosoya, the
Examiner contends that it would have been obvious to use the
transfer section of Hosoya in Nishio.
We agree with the Examiner. Nishio teaches
Appellants’ developing section with exactly the same
components, conductive roller 18b and resiliently engaged
conductive blade 20. Blade 20 is biased to provide a charge
injection effect as claimed. Note Nishio, column 3 lines 9-12
(conductive roller), column 3 lines 31-32 (resiliently engaged
blade), column 3 lines 36-40 (blade biased for charge
injection effect). Since Nishio does not disclose a transfer
section, which is a necessary section in any
electrophotographic recording apparatus, one skilled in the
art would have to look elsewhere. Looking at Hosoya we see a
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