Appeal No. 1998-0982 Page 3
Application No. 08/399,715
ring. With this arrangement, the diaphragm spring exerts a
biasing force to establish engagement between the driving wheel
and the stop flange (11) on the control shaft.
According to claim 1, the only independent claim on
appeal, the diaphragm spring has “a characteristic curve whose
shape is relatively negative and substantially constant along a
maximal movement path of the predetermined operating range.”
A copy of the appealed claims is appended to appellant’s
brief.
The following reference is relied upon by the examiner as
evidence of obviousness in support of her rejection under 35
U.S.C. § 103:
German Patent DE 42 33 250 Jan. 20, 1994
Barth et al. (Barth)3
Claims 1 through 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as being unpatentable over Barth. The examiner concedes that
Barth lacks a disclosure of the claimed negative spring
characteristic. She nevertheless concludes:
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art, as determined through routine
3Translation attached.
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