Appeal No. 2002-0894
Application No. 09/283,650
appears to reflect the examiner’s view that the plate 42 of
Neyland will inherently function in the manner called for in the
claims, i.e., to tilt forwardly “in the claimed manner” as it
moves to eject load material. It is our opinion, however, that
the examiner’s position lacks any reasonable support in the
Neyland reference and is based on speculation and conjecture.
In the first place, the independent claims on appeal here,
namely claims 21, 23 and 25, do not merely call for the ejector
to tilt at its upper margin toward the open end of the load
cavity as it ejects load material, but also that said tilting
action results in the ejector moving “to press the lower margin
of said ejector against the floor of said body” (claims 21, last
line).1 While it is certainly possible that the plate 42 of
Neyland might tilt forwardly as it moves to eject load material
from the compartment, we note that it is much more problematic
that any such tilting will result in the lower margin of the
plate being pressed against the floor of the compartment, as also
required by the claims. This is particularly so in that
1Independent claims 23 and 25 contain similar language.
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