Appeal No. 1998-1644
Application No. 08/494,516
immediately before TDC” [answer-page 4], that Lotterbach “inherently” teaches a specific
range being set so as not to overlap with the “wear region.” The examiner concludes that it
would have been obvious to explicitly output a signal in a specific range which does not
occur before immediate TDC (i.e., “wear region”).” The examiner cites Hmelovsky for the
proposition that it is very common to output a signal at TDC.
While the examiner has also presented arguments relative to the obviousness of
employing a ring gear as the toothed wheel in Lotterbach and the obviousness of the
subject matter of the dependent claims, we need not reach these issues because, in our
view, the examiner’s reasoning with regard to the claimed “specific range” is insufficient to
sustain the rejection of the independent claims even assuming, arguendo, that the
examiner is correct on everything else.
Lotterbach teaches nothing about a “wear region,” as claimed. The examiner has
mistakenly attributed to appellant a definition which supposes that a “wear region” is a
region occurring immediately prior to top dead center (TDC). In fact, a “wear region” is
defined in the instant specification, at page 3, as “either a region to be engaged with the
teeth of the pinion at a point where a rotating resistance of the engine becomes large when
starting up the engine, or a region to be engaged with the teeth of the pinion when starting
up the engine.”
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007