Appeal No. 1999-2132 Page 13
Application No. 08/672,856
known at the time the invention was made.” As in the prior
ground of rejection, the examiner concluded (answer, page 5)
that it would have been obvious to duplicate the Tekavec upper
and lower drive rollers and provide for an upper and a lower
series of drive rollers along the Tekavec arcuate discharge
path, in order to improve the reliability of the Tekavec
transfer device (1) in view of Reichental’s teachings and (2)
since it has been held that mere duplication of essential
working parts involves only routine skill in the art.
As we stated above, we know of no reason why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have disposed Tekavec’s
coining gear assembly 54 along the arcuate path defined by the
post-cutting constraining assembly 58, after the pad has been
completely formed and severed into a desired length, absent
the teachings in appellants’ specification.
Further, as correctly pointed out by the appellants (main
brief, page 11), Reichental discloses feed rollers 20,
embossing rollers 22, separating rollers 25 and combining
rollers 26 which are part of the conversion process. We agree
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