Appeal No. 2002-1970 Page 6
Application No. 09/072,333
guiding operation of the machine during feeding of the workpiece (column 1, lines 6-12)
and thus is not from within appellants’ field of endeavor, namely, formation of crop
bundles or bales.
Moreover, Bergvall is concerned with monitoring the distance and direction of
feed of the workpiece, for example, cloth in a sewing machine, and does not address
appellants’ problem of measuring the length of a product, namely, a crop bale, and
taking into account re-expansion of the bale as the ram is withdrawn. There is no
mention in Bergvall of a concern about expansion or extension of the cloth or workpiece
discussed therein. Thus, it is not apparent to us why one of ordinary skill in the art of
crop baling would have looked to a reference such as Bergvall, concerned with
monitoring and control of workpiece feeding within a machine, to solve appellants’
problem of accurately measuring the length of a crop bale as it is formed in a baler.
Accordingly, we agree with appellants that Bergvall also fails to meet the second
criterion for analogous art.
In any event, even if Bergvall were considered to be analogous art, we find no
suggestion from the teaching therein of a feed monitoring and control system to modify
the bale length measuring device of McPherson. In particular, neither of the applied
references recognizes a need or desirability to take into account both forward and
backward movement of the crop bundle in the chamber in McPherson’s device.
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