Appeal No. 2001-2332
Application 08/909,249
to note that (4) in Herman and (60) in Hansen “are synonymous.”
In addition, the examiner further urges (again without making
appropriate factual findings) that “[i]t would have been obvious
to use a gripper as claimed [sic] in Herman’s transfer and
Hanson’s [sic, Hansen’s] transfer if desiring to move a plurality
of articles at a time and space them since such is conventional
as shown by Goransson and Colamussi and Warren.” With respect to
the particular first and second array distributions set forth in
claim 30 on appeal, the examiner contends that “the exact array
changes would have been an obvious matter of design and or choice
dependent upon what was being done to the articles.”
Appellants assert (brief, pages 3-5), with regard to this
rejection, that altering of the array distribution as
specifically set forth in the claims on appeal is not taught or
suggested by any of the applied references. More specifically,
appellants’ urge that alteration of the spacial distribution of
an array (i.e., merely spreading out the elements within an array
as in Goransson, Colamussi and Warren) is not an alteration of
the array distribution, since the spatial separation of the
individual elements within an x1 by y1 array would still result
in an x1 by y1 array. The examiner’s response to this line of
argument is to urge (answer, page 4) that claim 29 does not state
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007