Appeal No. 97-1758 Page 11
Application No. 08/326,721
Comparison of the claim language to the reference’s
teaching evidences that Lissner would not have suggested the
claimed mounting. The claimed motor is mounted “fixedly,”
(Appeal Br., App. A at 1, 5); it is “fixed to the carriage.”
(Id. at 3.) During assembly, screws are tightened to fix the
motor in place. (Id. at 6; see also Spec. at 15.)
Consequently, the motor does not move during operation. In
contrast, the reference’s motor moves around its pivot point
during operation.
As aforementioned, the examiner reasoned that combining
Lissner’s mounting arrangement with Fago’s pulley and belt
would allow the combination to take-up slack in the belt as
wear caused the belt to stretch over time. To take-up slack,
however, a pulley on the drive shaft of the motor must be
able to move during operation. If the motor was fixed as
claimed the shaft’s pulley would be unable to move so as to
take-up slack over time. For the foregoing reasons, the
examiner failed to show that the references would have
suggested fixedly mounting the motor as in independent claim 1
and its dependent claims 4-7 and in independent claims 8 and
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