Appeal No. 2002-1788 Page 19
Application No. 09/217,667
The obviousness rejection
We sustain the rejection of claims 10, 13, 17 and 22 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
In the obviousness rejection before us in this appeal, the examiner stated
(answer, pp. 4-5):
With respect to claims 10 and 17, Williams et al. ('514), as advanced
above, do not disclose a positioning the first sensor along an edge of a stripe
disposed on the underside of the strip material. The use of a stripe or other
indicia to locate and align strip material is well known. It would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide Williams et al. ('514) with strip
material with a stripe and align the sensors to sense the position of the stripe
when the edge of the material is not detectable with the optical sensors, i.e. with
clear translucent strip material.
With respect to claims 13 and 22, Williams et al. ('514), as advanced
above, do not disclose a sensor stop for positioning said longitudinal edge of
said strip material (11). Guides or stops for guiding and aligning a first edge of a
strip material are well known. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art to provide Williams et al. ('514) with sensor stops for aligning the strip
material over the sensors to allow the sensors to work properly.
The appellant argues (brief, p. 9) that
Claims 10 and 13 depend from Claim 1 and recite additional limitations
thereto. Williams does not render Claims 10 and 13 of the present invention
obvious since Williams does not teach or even suggest aligning the sheet
material with respect to a detection sensor based on the detection sensor signal.
Claims 10 and 13 of the present invention, in combination with Claim 1,
specifically recite that the detection sensor generates a detection sensor signal
that is received by the processor to automatically align the strip material with
respect to the feed path prior to a work operation based on the detection sensor
signal. Rather, Williams teaches that five sensors (130, 132, 134, 126, 128)
disposed at various locations are used to align the sheet material. Therefore,
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