Appeal No. 1997-2986
Application No. 08/260,784
even assuming that the finished pieces made from different
sheets of stock in accordance with different program routines
are located in different areas of pallet 7. The § 103
rejection is therefore affirmed as to claims 1, 12, and 21.
The rejection is also affirmed as to dependent claims 2, 4,
and 13, which are not separately argued.
Dependent claim 3 calls for dividing the operating area
of the unloading means into zones and using addresses to
identify the zones. Although Taijonlahti does not indicate
that the surface of the pallet 7 is divided into areas having
addresses, it would have been obvious in view of Taijonlahti's
disclosure of implementing unloading and handling mechanism 3
as a manipulator or robot to use addresses to identify the
various possible storage locations on pallet 7. The rejection
is therefore affirmed with respect to this claim.
Claim 5 calls for the unloading means to include a
receiver means which can be positioned relative to the sorting
means of unargued claim 4, which specifies that finished
pieces of a given dimension are moved to a particular location
at the sorting mechanism. These limitations of claims 4 and 5
are satisfied because Taijonlahti's pieces move to particular
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