Appeal No. 1999-0911
Application No. 08/852,708
It would have been obvious to a person of
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention
was made to have provided in Appellants’ admitted
prior art that length in the web in a section
between the feed means and the first cylinder is
greater than the direct distance between the
location at which the web leaves the feed means and
the location at which the blade contacts the first
cylinder using support rollers because Steidinger et
al. teach that such a web feed path is well-known
and it is [sic: would have been] obvious to replace
one feed path with an art recognized alternative
feed path used for the same purpose of moving a web
from a feed means to a vacuum cylinder for cutting.
Since the method of Appellants’ admitted prior
art in view of Steidinger et al. is the same as
presently claimed, it is reasonable to suggest that
between the feed means and the cut line there will
be a reduction in tensile stress which will prevent
the tears in the web incident to severing the web to
the same degree as is present in the pending claims,
although this may not be specifically recited.
Although the examiner acknowledges that Steidinger does
not indicate a reason for the distance shown between feed
means 20 and the location at which the blade on cylinder 27
contacts cylinder 28 (i.e., contacts web 19) (Answer, page 4),
he appears to take the position at page 10 of the Answer that
the combination of the APA and Steidinger would inherently
meet the above-quoted last step of claim 52 because
appellants’ specification (at pages 10 and 11)
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