Appeal No. 2000-1951
Application No. 08/980,969
We find for appellant as the examiner has failed to present a prima facie case of
anticipation with regard to the subject matter of instant claim 1.
The examiner’s statement of rejection regarding claim 1 is that it is rejected as
“being clearly anticipated by Xuan” [Final Rejection-Paper No. 9 -page 2]. No rationale, or
explanation of any kind, is presented by the examiner until the examiner’s response to the
principal brief, at page 4 of the answer. At that point, the examiner points to Figure 1 of
Xuan, identifying stator 1, rotor 9 or 10, and a coil 2 wrapped around a core 12. The
examiner then asserts that the stator of Xuan has a planar structure defining two magnetic
poles formed on either side of the rotor opening and that polar extensions of the poles
define the opening for the rotor. The examiner contends that “the part of the planar
structure forming the second magnetic pole (the part of the stator forming cores 11 and 13)
surrounds the portion of the planar structure which forms the first pole (near the end of core
12) since the planar structure is continuous around its perimeter” [answer-page 4].
It is unclear to us as to exactly what the examiner is identifying in Xuan, as the
claimed “first” and “second” magnetic stator poles. However, even assuming the examiner
is correct in the assessment that the instant claim “does not specifically set forth where the
pole begins and ends,” [answer-page 4] and that some part of Xuan’s stator surrounds
some other part of the stator, one cannot just pick any portion of the stator as the “second
magnetic pole” and arbitrarily say that it “surrounds” another part of the stator structure
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007