Appeal No. 1997-2305
Application 08/451,459
advanced by appellant and the examiner and agree with
appellant that the aforementioned rejection of claims 11-20
and 28-30 is not well founded. Accordingly, we reverse the
rejection of these claims. We affirm the rejection of claims
21-27.
Claims 11-16
Claim 11 requires that the magazine means laterally
surrounds a plurality of conductive rods. The examiner argues
that a magazine is “[a]ny of various compartments attached to
machines for storing or supplying necessary material”, and2
that Eldridge’s clamping screw (26) is a magazine (answer,
page 4). Even if the examiner is correct, the examiner has
not established a prima facie case of obviousness of the
apparatus recited in claim 11 because the examiner has not
explained why Eldridge’s’ clamping screw device is capable of
laterally surrounding a plurality of conductive rods. We
therefore reverse the rejection of claim 11 and claims 12-16
which depend therefrom.
2See Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary
(1984).
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