Appeal No. 2001-1309
Application No. 08/964,780
teaches the shape of the brush controls the motor speed [sic] and because discovering
the optimum or workable range involves only routine skill in the art” [answer-page 4].
For the reasons, supra, Suriano does not teach a motor speed being
substantially constant during an initial period of time and then “progressively decrease”
during a second period of time. Rather, Suriano appears to teach first an increase in
speed during an initial period of time and then a decrease during a second period of
time. Accordingly, we do not need to reach the question of whether it would have been
obvious to provide 100 hours for the initial period and 100 hours for the second period.
Further, while it may be, generally speaking, that the discovery of an optimum
value of a result effective variable in a known process is ordinarily within the skill of an
artisan; In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456, 105 USPQ 233, 235 (CCPA 1955), the
examiner has not shown that the claimed time periods of 100 hours comprise discovery
of optimum values of a “result effective variable in a known process.”
Accordingly, we will not sustain the rejection of claims 6, 7 and 13 under 35
U.S.C. § 103.
Finally, the examiner rejected claims 12 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 by relying
on either one of the above grounds in addition to Onodera, Onodera being employed
for a suggestion of a motor being used to adjust a seat in a vehicle.
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