Appeal No. 1999-2114
Application 08/821,711
and that the examiner’s position is “a conclusion rather than
a reason and is therefore unsupportable” (brief, page 6).
We share the examiner’s view that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to slide the gate
7 at a rate of 0.1 to 1.0 meter per second for the reason of
optimizing the sliding rate to operate at any industry or
commercially feasible rate. It is clear that the gate 7 in
BPS ‘215 must be moved in order to eject the finished-pressed
blank from
the mold. The rate of movement of the gate is solely up to
the user. Although appellant has indicated that the “faster
the speed of opening of the gate 28, the smoother will be the
edges of the upper end of the finished block” (specification,
page 6), appellant has not disclosed that the particular rate
disclosed is critical. Furthermore, disclosure of such a
broad rate of movement is evidence that the rate is not
critical and any rate within the range could be used to move
the gate. In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1578, 16 USPQ2d
10
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