Appeal No. 2002-1336
Application No. 09/259,062
The examiner finds correspondence between the claimed
“support arm” and that part of the latch of Reinhart that is
distal of limit stop 378, inclusive of the limit stop (answer,
sentence spanning pages 3 and 4). The examiner asserts that
Reinhart meets the limitation of claim 1 that the support arm and
the magnetically permeable member “extend in a second plane
substantially parallel to and displaced from the first plane”
because
The magnetically permeable members of Reinhart ‘527 are
three-dimensional objects. It is a mathematical fact
that three-dimensional objects occupy an infinite
number of planes substantially parallel to and
displaced from any given plane. . . .
. . . Although claim 1 requires that member 312
occupies at least one plane substantially parallel to
and displaced from a plane occupied by the contact
feature 374, nothing in the claim requires that member
312 and feature 374 occupy no common planes. [Answer,
pages 5-6.]
Even if we accept the examiner’s assertion in this regard,
we cannot accept the examiner’s further assertion that Reinhart
meets the limitation of claim 1 calling for a support arm which
extends from the latch arm “in a direction substantially toward
the actuator assembly.” While we appreciate that the examiner
considers the support arm of Reinhart as corresponding to that
part of the latch distal of the limit stop 378 inclusive of the
5
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