Appeal No. 1997-0906
Application 08/292,666
for the ends of the handles and the ends of the handles do not
protrude through the handle tie.
Claims 1 and 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Adamson, Darlow, and Kakisako.
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 5) and the
Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 11) (pages referred to as "EA__")
for a statement of the Examiner's position and to the Brief
(Paper No. 10) (pages referred to as "Br__") for a statement
of Appellants' arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
Appellants' only real argument is the advantage provided
by abutting the operating handles against the handle tie
(Br8):
In their Specification, at page 4, beginning at line
5, Applicants describe the problem with the
disproportionate distribution of forces involved with
such prior art handle tie devices and improves thereover
by abutting the operating handles against the handle tie
to provide a uniform distribution of force to all the
circuit breaker operating handles as well as eliminating
the arcing problems that occur when metal items abut the
circuit breaker operating handles.
The Examiner's statement of the rejection does not
anywhere address the limitations that "said first compartments
further define an inner surface that abuts an outer surface on
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Last modified: November 3, 2007