Appeal No. 2000-1632
Application No. 09/055,308
3 as being a convenient way of representing an arrangement of
plastic bearing balls and steel spheres that continues in a
similar fashion all the way around the circumference of the
bearing tracks. Still further, we find that an artisan would
view Rumsey’s statement that “a spacer [singular] or spacers
[plural] of selected length may be used between adjacent nylon
balls 13” (column 3, lines 73-75), when taken in conjunction
with Figure 3, as a disclosure that either one steel sphere per
plastic bearing ball or multiple steel spheres per plastic
bearing ball may be utilized to reduce the number of plastic
bearing balls required, so long as the number of plastic bearing
balls used is sufficient to support the heavy inertia member in
the manner called for at column 3, lines 40-43. Finally, based
on the above findings, we find that an artisan would view
Rumsey’s Figure 3 as a disclosure of a plastic bearing ball and
steel sphere arrangement wherein the plastic bearing balls and
steel spheres are alternately disposed in the bearing tracks.
We now consider appellants’ argument concerning the alleged
differences between the apparatus of Rumsey and the subject
matter of claims 1 and 10.
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