Appeal No. 2001-0302
Application No. 08/635,614
Even if we were to agree with the examiner that it would
have been obvious to replace the clutch of Ito and/or the slip
clutch of Takaoka with an overload coupling device of the sort
taught by Wehr, the claimed subject matter would not, in our
opinion, result. In this regard, while the overload coupler
taught by Wehr could perhaps be reconfigured to meet the
requirement of the last paragraph of claim 1, there is no
teaching in the applied references for doing so and it is not an
inherent characteristic of Wehr. We are therefore in agreement
with the argument presented by appellants on pages 30-31 of the
main brief to the effect that the applied references simply do
not teach or suggest the claimed range of deformation values *b
in a torque setting member so that the torque limiter functions
in the area “A” of the diametric force/diametric deformation
curve to the right of the “specific value” *a. It follows that
we shall not sustain the standing Section 103 rejection of the
appealed claims based on Ito or Takaoka.
Finally, we have also considered the Section 103 rejection
of the appealed claims based on Ito in view of either Milby or
Parker (rejection (e)), and the Section 103 rejection of the
appealed claims based on Ito or Takaoka in view of Wehr, and
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