Appeal No. 2001-1473
Application 08/946,736
In proposing to combine Christian and Wiand to reject claim
29, the examiner concludes that it would have been obvious at the
time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in
the art “to have modified the Christian sharpener with the quick
disconnect and connect arrangement as taught by Wiand for the
grinding assembly to increase the productivity of the sharpening
operation” (revised answer, page 5). The appellant counters (see
pages 13 through 17 in the brief) that the examiner’s rationale
is flawed because the Christian sharpener is not amenable to a
quick connect/disconnect feature due to the relative
inaccessibility of its grinding wheel assembly, and that the
collective teachings of Christian and Wiand would not have
suggested the proposed combination for any other reason.
Notwithstanding the appellant’s argument to the contrary,
Wiand’s express disclosure of the aforementioned grinding surface
replacement benefits afforded by the subject two-part grinding
wheel assembly would have furnished the artisan with ample
motivation or suggestion to employ such an assembly in the
Christian sharpener. Because Wiand’s two-part assembly
constitutes a ring and hub construction of the sort required by
claim 29, the proposed modification of the Christian sharpener
would meet all of the limitations in the claim. Although
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