Appeal No. 1999-0738
Application No. 08/474,195
USPQ 561, 563-64 (CCPA 1982). In calling into question the
enablement of appellant’s disclosure, the examiner has the
initial burden of advancing acceptable reasoning inconsistent
with enablement. Id. In the present case, the examiner has
failed to meet this burden.
A person of ordinary skill in the art would have readily
appreciated from appellant’s disclosure that the bi-stable 2
characteristic of appellant’s device is the result of the bias
of one of the layers of the composite structure being
temporarily overcome by the bias of the other layer to hold
the device in one of its two stable positions, rather than the
bias of one of the layers being “lost” as a result of that
layer’s bias being less than the biasing force of the other
layer. Further, we are in accord with appellant that the
ordinarily skilled artisan would fully understand from
appellant’s disclosure how to wind the composite structure3
about a plurality of transverse parallel axes, for example, by
2See, for example, page 10, line 17 through page 11, line
22, and page 12, line 7 through page 13, line 7, of the
specification.
3See, for example, page 21, lines 20 through 23, of the
specification.
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