Appeal No. 97-1871
Application 08/325,847
this group and shall decide the appeal as to the § 103 rejections of the claims of this group based
thereon.
In rejecting claim 1 et al under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (rejection (II)(a)), the examiner applied Baylin
in view of Bishop and Smith, citing Bishop for its disclosure of various tumbling media, and Smith for its
disclosure of curved needles. It is however unnecessary to consider either Bishop or Smith with regard
to claim 1, because claim 1 does not recite any particular medium, nor does it recite curved needles.
Appellant's only argument concerning Baylin, as applied to the Group 1 claims, is (brief, page
10):
Baylin discloses the tumbling of knitting needles in order to polish them, but neither
discloses nor suggests the steps of providing a needle with a sharp pointed tip and then
forming a radius on the tip of the needle by tumbling. Baylin's needles are stacked in
aligned parallel relationship so that the rotating and to-and-fro motion of the container
causes them to rub along their sides. If, as the Office Action suggests, Baylin starts out
with pointed needles, this fact does not militate against appellant's argument. The Baylin
needles would be expected to keep their points for their original purpose of knitting.
The tips of the Baylin needles are not disclosed as being blunted or radiused by this
operation.
We do not agree with this argument. Baylin discloses tumbling the container 16 containing
knitting needles and a "suitable abradant" (col. 2, lines 29 and 32). The needles to be tumbled would
have sharp pointed tips, as claimed, the term "sharp" being but a relative term and applicable to the tip
of a knitting needle. The examiner takes the position that the tips of Baylin's needles would inherently
have radii formed on them when tumbled with an abradant; as he states on page 9 of the answer:
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