Appeal No. 1998-2416
Application 08/586,807
sealingly joined together. Claim 15 also requires at least
one of the housing shells to include “workpiece support means
on which workpieces can be located prior to being machined to
permit the workpieces to become conditioned by exposure to the
environment within the enclosure for a predetermined period of
time.” Implicitly acknowledging that Todd does not respond to
this limitation, the examiner submits (see page 6 in the
answer) that Zimmermann discloses an enclosure shell including
workpiece support means in Figure 1 and at page 6, column 1,
lines 8 through 30. The only workpiece support means shown
and described, respectively, in these portions of the
reference is rotatable work table 6. Work table 6, however,
ostensibly is not
part of any enclosure shell. Thus, the examiner’s conclusion
that the combined teachings of Todd and Zimmermann would have
rendered obvious the subject matter recited in claim 15 rests
on an unsupported, and seemingly inaccurate, finding of fact.
Furthermore, this flaw finds no cure in Roberts’ disclosure of
a measuring device having a transparent top or window 11.
7
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