Appeal No. 2001-0267
Application No. 08/980,352
predetermined number of times in a state in
which said pair of clamps are opened and
are ready to receive the belt of plate-
shaped clips when no clip is set between
said pair of clamps and, if the belt of
plate-shaped clips is not detected by said
clip-setting-detecting means during the
predetermined number of times, said pair of
clamps and said slider are stopped from
being driven. 3
The patent to Rider teaches a hand-operated tool for
applying clips stored on a carrier strip. As acknowledged by
the examiner (Paper No. 5), Rider does not disclose a
photodetector to detect the presence of clips at points of the
device and does not teach a control system that will stop the
operation in response to signals from the photodetector. To
overcome this deficiency and provide a suggestion for the
modification of the Rider teaching, the examiner relies upon
the Hooven patent.
The Hooven disclosure addresses an endoscopic surgical
system including an endoscopic stapling and cutting instrument
3As previously mentioned, consistent with the underlying
disclosure, we understand the recitation of a predetermined
number of times to denote more than one time.
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