Appeal No. 2002-0500 Page 16
Application No. 09/258,320
reverse the obviousness rejection of claim 5 and of claims 6, 7, 9, 11, 20, 24, 25, and
26, which fall therewith.
Claim 8
We address the point of contention between examiner and the appellants.
Admitting that neither AAPA nor Takahashi teaches a "sleeve having an end which is
smaller than the inner diameter of the rib and flares out to the outer wall of the sleeve,"
(Supp. Examiner's Answer at 5), the examiner asserts, "[i]t would have been obvious to
a person skilled in the art at the time of the invention to construct the motor of AAPA
and Takahashi with the sleeve having an end which is smaller than the inner diameter
of the rib and flares out to the outer wall of the sleeve because Suzuki teaches the
sleeve can be uses to help to keep the rotor from flying off of the stator." (Id. at 5-6.)
The appellants argue, "[i]t does not appear from Suzuki that there is any embodiment in
which the sleeve end flares outwardly to the outer wall of the sleeve, with the sleeve
end having an outer diameter adjacent to rotor smaller than an inner diameter of the
rib." (Appeal Br. at 10.)
Turning to the prior art, Suzuki explains that an "elastic body 20 (i.e., a projected
member) is fixed onto the rotational shaft 1. . . ." Suzuki Translation, p. 5. "To fit the
rotational shaft 1, as shown in Figure 2, the elastic body 20 is fitted into the concave
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