Appeal No. 96-3992
Application 08/356,618
donor roller was ever a problem. As to the Examiner's "belief" (Answer, page 7) that the roller of
Fromm would suffer similar separation problems as that of Kato, we find such observation to be pure
speculation lacking any support on the record. We can find no motivation for the artisan to apply
Kato's reinforcing layer teachings to the donor roll structure of Fromm. The only basis for applying
Kato's teachings to the Fromm device comes from an improper attempt to reconstruct the Appellant's
invention in hindsight.
Accordingly, we can not sustain the Examiner's obviousness rejection of independent claim 1. Since all
of the limitations of independent claim 1 are not suggested by the applied prior art, we can also not
sustain the Examiner's rejection of appealed claims 12-14 which depend therefrom.
In summary, the Examiner's rejection is sustained with respect to claims 5 and 9-11 but is not
sustained with respect to claims 1 and 12-14. Accordingly, the decision of the Examiner rejecting
claims 1, 5, and 9-14 is affirmed-in-part.
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