Appeal No. 1999-2087
Application No. 08/595,449
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the
appellants’ invention.
With respect to claim 3, the appellants argue that the
combination of Murphy and JA 60-7995 fails to teach or suggest
that “the electric motor has an output shaft extending at an
inclined angle to both a vertical plane and horizontal [sic,
plane] and extending in an upward direction from the crank
axis and forwardly therefrom for driving the transmission.”
In support of this argument, the appellants describe the shaft
12 of Murphy (see Fig. 1) as “the electric motor output shaft”
and point out that shaft 12 is not perpendicular to the axis
of the crankshaft.
The appellants’ argument is not well taken. While it is
true that Murphy refers to the shaft 12 as the motor shaft
(e.g., see col. 3, l. 38), it is clear upon consideration of
Murphy’s entire disclosure that the shaft 12 is actually the
output shaft from the gearbox of the motor 10. See col. 3, l.
39. In essence, the shaft 12 corresponds to the appellants’
disclosed drive pinion 77, i.e., the shaft 12 is the output
shaft of the transmission or gearbox. Thus, we agree with the
examiner’s analysis of Murphy, which is that Murphy inherently
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