Appeal No. 1999-1536 Page 3
Application No. 08/938,592
Claim 49 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Ristvedt in
view of Black.
Reference is made to the main and reply briefs (Papers No. 27 and 30) and the answer
(Paper No. 28) for the respective positions of the appellants and the examiner with regard to
the merits of this rejection.
OPINION
In arriving at our decision on the obviousness issues raised in this appeal, we have
given careful consideration to the appellants' specification and claims, the teachings of the
applied prior art references, the evidence supplied by appellants, and the respective positions
articulated by appellants and the examiner. Having reviewed all of the evidence before us, we
make the determinations which follow.
Ristvedt discloses a coin sorter comprising a rotatable disc (turntable 38) having a
resilient upper surface (pad 54) and a stationary sorting head 56 having a lower surface, best
seen in Figure 4, configured with lands, including a basic or reference land L, and recesses
which control the sorting process by forming a plurality of exit paths 180a-180f extending to
the periphery of the sorting head. Sorting of coins is accomplished by the combination of the
relationship between a plurality of pins 114a-114f and a tapered edge 112 on the lower surface
of the sorting head. In particular, the distance between a pin and the edge 112 is preset to urge
a particular diameter coin under and across the edge 112 under the force of the rotating pad 54
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