Appeal No. 1999-2097 Page 5
Application No. 08/621,988
impression given by the examiner, Huang does not bend a flat core assembly into a
cylindrical shape, but forms a cylinder from a plurality of preformed arcuate segments
2
(column 5, line 47 et seq.) (see Figure 6). Therefore, the examiner’s contention that
Huang “teach[es] the technique of assembling windings onto elongated core structure and
then bending that core structure into its ultimate circular shape” (final rejection, Paper No.
11, page 2, emphesis added) is not correct.
Barrett has been cited for teaching that both wound in place and preformed stator
coils are known in the art.
We fail to perceive any teaching, suggestion or incentive which would have led one
of ordinary skill in the art to modify the method disclosed in the Japanese reference by
installing the stator coil, whether wound in place or preformed, upon the flat core prior to
bending the core into a cylindrical shape. We arrive at this conclusion for several reasons.
First, there is no teaching in the applied references of bending a flat element to a curved
configuration after a coil or the like has been installed upon it, much less doing so with the
elements of a rotating electric device. Second, to do so with the method disclosed in the
Japanese reference would necessitate placing the stator coil in the same slots in which the
bending rods must be placed, thus making it impossible to carry out the bending process
2In passing, we note that Figure 4b illustrates what appears to be a single, long flat
element. However, nowhere in the patent is the use of flat elements mentioned and it is not
stated in column 8, where Figure 4b is explained, that it is anything other than curved.
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