Appeal No. 2002-0072 Page 3 Application No. 08/956,912 OPINION In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations which follow. Claim 1 A device for forming a longitudinal fold in signatures being conveyed by a conveyor system, comprising: a delay mechanism selectively processing individual signatures from a stream of signatures to form at least one signature grouping, a folding blade disposed downstream of the delay mechanism and parallel to a direction of forward travel of the at least one signature grouping; and a folding mechanism disposed below the folding blade, the folding mechanism receiving each signature of the at least one signature grouping and longitudinally folding all the signatures of the at least one signature grouping simultaneously, wherein the folding blade is driven between a first position and a second position, the folding blade in the second position urging the signatures of the at least one signature grouping toward the folding mechanism. The Rejection Under Section 102 Independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2, 7 and 8 stand rejected as being anticipated by Kobler. Of course, anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, either expressly or under the principles of inherency, each andPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007