Appeal No. 97-1143
Application 08/115,881
below the center of Rice's base. The wheels (b ) in Covert on1
which the examiner relies are actually the front wheels of
Covert's fire truck. We do not find any teaching in Covert
that wheels (b ) are mounted approximately midway of the frame1
(B), see Covert's Figures 2 and 4, or any advantage that may
be obtained by doing so. In fact, we would expect that the
positioning of wheels (b ) and (I) on frame (B) would be1
controlled more by the requirement for stability of frame (B)
when a fire fighter is on the raised and extended ladder
sections C, C than on the turning radius of the frame and,1
therefore, that the wheels (b ) and (I) would be set as far1
apart as possible to maximize the stability of frame (B).
Thus, unlike the examiner, we conclude that Covert would not
have been suggestive of positioning a second wheel set
approximately midway of a frame as called for in claim 1.
The examiner has relied on Borgman for the teaching of a
front set of swivel wheels to facilitate steering and a rear
set of wheels to facilitate transporting (answer, page 2).
Thus, even if we were to agree with the examiner that it would
have been obvious to incorporate these features of Borgman
into the scaffold structure of Rice, the basic deficiency of
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