Appeal No. 1999-0195
Application 08/507,424
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to
have provided control and drive means in the device of Blunden
for moving the chock bar 62 relative to the carriage 80 and
for moving the carriage 80 relative to the track 46 in view of
the teachings of Cone “so as to automate the system of
Blunden” (answer, page 3).
While we appreciate that it might be possible, as a
general proposition, to automate the system of Blunden, it
would not have been obvious within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. §
103 to do so in light of the combined teachings of the applied
references. In keeping with its intended use on a railroad
car environment, the Blunden system is relatively simple in
construction to thereby facilitate manual operation. In use,
chock bar 62 is manually pivoted from the solid line position
in Figure 5 to the position shown in Figure 4 as carriage 80
is simultaneously moved along 46 track in order to bring pin
100 into registry with one of the holes 104 in the opposite
track to secure the chock bar in a vehicle blocking position.
The complexity and accuracy that would be required of a
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007