Appeal No. 1998-1644
Application No. 08/494,516
Claims 1 through 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over
Lotterbach in view of Hmelovsky.
Reference is made to the brief and answer for the respective positions of appellant
and the examiner.
OPINION
With respect to the claimed engine comprising a ring gear having teeth and
coupled with the crankshaft, a starter motor for rotating the ring gear and a starter pinion
coupled with the motor and having teeth engaged with the ring gear teeth when starting the
engine, the examiner contends that this is all very well known to artisans dealing with
engines and appellant does not deny it. The examiner cites Lotterbach for the teaching of
a magnetic sensor which outputs a signal in accordance with the passing of teeth of a
toothed wheel for a particular region and for the teaching of detecting a rotation angle of
the crankshaft.
The examiner admits that Lotterbach does not teach the specific range, or
particular region, being set so as not to overlap with a wear region and the outputting of a
signal during the specific range. However, it is the examiner’s position that since
Lotterbach teaches a “continuous measuring of a plurality of regions via the plurality of
teeth on the toothed wheel wherein some of the regions do not coincide with a region
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