Appeal No. 1999-1721 Page 4
Application No. 08/734,125
holding means and each of said grooves of the bearing body form an
independent raceway, wherein the positions of the ball holding means of said
ball holder is substantially identical to that of the positions of grooves of a track
shaft part of the rail, the ball holder is used only when the retainerless saddle is
taken out of the rail to maintain the balls between the ball holder and the
retainerless saddle and is moved out of the retainerless saddle when said saddle
is inserted onto the rail to form a preloaded linear bearing assembly.
Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, either expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every
element of a claimed invention. See RCA Corp. V. Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730
F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
The examiner's position is that the track rail (2) of Hara anticipates the ball holder of
claim 2. We observe that the track rail (2) of Hara comprises an elongated shaft portion, best
shown in Figure 1, and two raceway grooves (5). The disclosed use of Hara's rails is as track
rails on which equipment placed on a slide table (4) secured to a pair of sliders (1) is moved
forward and backward. Each of the sliders (1) consists of a casing (3) having casing raceway
grooves (9) formed in positions facing the raceway grooves (5) of the rails to define a raceway
in which rolling elements or balls (7) are confined. A ball retaining band (18), best seen in
Figure 5, is provided to prevent the balls from coming off the casing (column 7, lines 6-8).
Appellant concedes that Hara's rail "holds balls in position" but argues that it does not
anticipate appellant's claim 2 because the ball holding means of Hara are part of Hara's rail and
not a part of an elongated shaft portion which is "independent from the rail" as required
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