Appeal No. 1999-1168 Page 5
Application No. 08/876,191
As shown in Figures 9, 11 and 12, Nickipuck ‘405 discloses a transverse stem that
is cammed into a locking position in a detent by means of a slidable control bar. However,
the stem is not spring-biased, as is required by the claim. Moreover, as shown in Figure
11, it is not maintained in contact with the control bar when the bar is in the unlocked
position, also as required by the appellant’s claim 19. As explained in the patent
specification, the diameter of the bore is decreased at its ends to retain the balls in the
bore (column 5, lines 30-37). The structure disclosed in Nickipuck ‘405 thus fails to
disclose two of the requirements of claim 19 and therefore, even if the required suggestion
to combine the references were present, the resulting structure would not meet the terms of
the claim. The same rationale applies to Nickipuck ‘511, which shows the stem only in
Figure 9.
In the locking mechanism of Nickipuck ‘549, a transverse stem that can seat in a
detent in the ratchet is spring-biased toward a sliding control bar (see Figures 2 and 3).
However, a ball is interposed between the head of the stem and the control bar, whereby
the head does not contact the control bar as is recited in claim 19. In addition, as was the
case in Nickipuck ‘405, the transverse locking device (the ball and the stem) is not
maintained in contact with the control bar when the bar is in the unlocked position, as is
shown in Figure 3. In this setup, the diameter of the bore is decreased at the open ends to
maintain the components therein. Thus, this reference also fails to disclose some of the
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