Appeal No. 1997-4444
Application 08/427,884
rotates, the entire carriage 35, arm 39, and hub 40 of Elliott
et al. rotates about the shaft 41. Accordingly, neither
Yamakawa et al. nor Elliott et al. teaches or suggests a
cassette handling system in which a drive collar rotates about
a threaded shaft to move a carrier assembly."
The Examiner finds that Elliott's hub 40 is a drive
collar and concludes (EA11): "It would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was
made to replace Yamakawa's pulley and belt system to raise and
lower the carrier with a threaded shaft and rotatable drive
collar as disclosed by Elliott, while maintaining the non-
rotating carrier disclosed by Yamakawa by techniques well
known in the art."
We agree with the Examiner that, as a general
proposition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art to substitute known alternative drive systems
for the belt and pulley system in Yamakawa. However, we fail
to see how the Examiner proposes to modify Yamakawa's system
to incorporate the rotatable hub 40 in Elliott "while
maintaining the non-rotating carrier disclosed by Yamakawa"
(EA11), without using Appellant's disclosure against him. The
- 20 -
Page: Previous 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007