Appeal No. 1998-0253
Application No. 08/261,252
factory floor 6 alongside an automobile assembly conveyor, and
a connector 10 for detachable coupling to the conveyor.
As acknowledged by the examiner (see page 7 in the main
answer), the Japanese reference fails to respond to any of the
limitations in independent claims 4, 8 and 11 relating to the
robot or to the work/vehicle body section mounting and
aligning means. In short, there is nothing in Monforte’s
robotic end effector tool disclosure and/or Hamada’s assembly
system disclosure which would have suggested modifying the
method implicitly disclosed by the Japanese reference to
arrive at the subject matter recited in these claims. Here
again, the only suggestion for combining the references in the
manner proposed stems from hindsight knowledge improperly
derived from the appellants’ disclosure.
Hence, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 103
rejection of claims 4, 8 and 11, or of claims 5, 6, 9 and 12
which depend therefrom, as being unpatentable over the
Japanese reference in view of Monforte and Hamada.
-7-
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007