Appeal No. 98-1938
Application 08/570,196
careful consideration to appellants’ specification and claims,
to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by appellants and the examiner. As a
consequence of our review, we have made the determination that
we will not sustain the examiner’s rejections of the appealed
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Our reasoning follows.
In reviewing the teachings of Jorgensen and Honsa as
applied to claims 31 through 33, 40 through 42 and 48 through
50 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, we must agree with appellants
(brief, pages 5-10 and reply brief, pages 2-4) that the
applied prior art references do not teach, suggest or render
obvious the hub structure set forth in the above enumerated
claims on appeal. Independent claim 31 specifically requires
that the inner and outer rings of the claimed hub structure
are connected to one another by flexibly deformable
intermediate elements “so as to prevent movement of the outer
ring relative to the inner ring in the circumferential
direction of said outer ring” (emphasis added). In contrast to
this requirement, Jorgensen specifically discloses (col. 1,
lines 31-42 and col. 2, lines 34-50) that there is relative
rotation between the outer (5) and inner (9) rings of the tape
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