Appeal No. 2002-1067
Application No. 09/358,666
constitute a “substantially” cylindrical roller. It is
the Examiner’s opinion that a shallow bevel with a
minuscule dimension such as a nanometer would fall
within the deviation allowed by the term
“substantially” and therefore constitute a
“substantially” cylindrical roller.
The above quoted rationale offered by the examiner asserting
that Wegner anticipates appellants’ claim 24 is not persuasive.
The examiner determined that a shallow bevel with a minuscule
dimension such as a nanometer would fall within the deviation
allowed by the term “substantially”; however, the examiner did
not find that Wegner’s roller has such a minuscule taper.
Rather, the examiner found that Wegner discloses a work roll
having a “shallow bevel” (column 5, line 29) that “may be” within
the range of a “substantially” cylindrical roller, and that
Wegner’s disclosure of a work roll having a “shallow bevel” means
that the taper thereof “can range anywhere from a minuscule
dimension such as a nanometer [which would arguably meet the
terms of the claim] to a larger dimension that would not
constitute a ‘substantially’ cylindrical roller” (answer, page
4). Thus, by the examiner’s own admission, the disclosure of
Wegner relative to the bevel of the work roll is ambiguous in
that the bevel may or may not have a “minuscule dimension” that,
in the examiner’s view, would meet the substantially cylindrical
roller requirement of claim 24. This does not provide a proper
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