Appeal No. 2000-0617
Application 08/706,025
supported entirely by a single ball at one end of the rotor
and a single ball at the other end of the rotor, e.g. with no
intermediate bearing. (Finding 9). The examiner has failed
to sufficiently demonstrate why one of ordinary skill in the
art would have arrived at the claimed invention based on the
combination of Nagata and Nakagawa, despite Nagata teaching
that a single ball bearing is not desirable for its stated
purpose, e.g. to eliminate an intermediate bearing. It has
not been sufficiently demonstrated why a person of ordinary
skill, upon reading the Nagata reference, would not be led in
a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the
applicant.
In the Answer, the examiner argues that “the general term
pivot bearing would suggest to a person skilled in the art
that other pivot bearings may be incorporated to achieve the
desired goal.” (Answer at 7). While this ordinarily may be
true, here the Nagata reference actually discourages using a
single ball pivot bearing. Therefore, why would one of
ordinary skill in the art want to incorporate the type of
bearing that Nagata expressly states that it does not want to
use? The test under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is whether the teachings
of the prior art, taken as a whole, would have made obvious
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007