Appeal No. 98-1350
Application No. 08/607,549
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Storm in view of Shell, we must
agree with appellants that the applied prior art references do
not teach, suggest or render obvious the blade sharpening
assembly set forth in the above enumerated claims on appeal.
Even if we were to conclude that the connector assembly of Shell
(used in storage racks, scaffolding, and the like) would have
commended itself to the attention of one of ordinary skill in the
blade sharpening art involved in this application and in the
Storm patent, we see no reasonable teaching or suggestion in the
applied references which would have led one of ordinary skill in
the art to use the connector assembly of Shell in the blade
sharpening apparatus of Storm as a substitute for the headed
screw arrangement (78) used in Storm to secure the guide bracket
(14) to the rear end of the lower jaw (20) therein. In this
regard, we are of the view that the examiner’s position is based
on impermissible hindsight gleaned from appellants’ own
disclosure and not from any fair teaching or suggestion found in
the applied prior art references themselves. More specifically,
we consider that the examiner has used appellants’ own disclosure
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007