Appeal No. 2003-0707
Application 09/690,534
As indicated above, independent claim 1 requires the vehicle
recited therein to comprise a support arm
configured and located relative to said one of said
front and rear sets of wheels that said working unit is
moved to a position occupying space vertically above a
respective wheel of said one of said front and rear
sets of wheels when said arm is moved to said transport
position.
The examiner’s finding of general correspondence between
this support arm and working unit and Goman’s push arm 24 and
mower deck 18, respectively, is reasonable on its face and has
not been disputed by the appellants. Goman, however, does not
expressly teach whether or not the mower deck 18 is moved to a
position occupying space vertically above a wheel when the push
arm 24 is moved to the transport position. Given this lack of
explicit disclosure, the examiner and appellants have advanced
conflicting analyses respectively concluding that Goman does and
does not disclose this feature under principles of inherency.
A careful evaluation of these positions shows that each
rests in large part on unfounded conjecture. For example, while
the examiner is correct that the mower deck 18 must clear the
nearest wheel in order to move to the transport position shown in
Figure 3, this does not necessarily mean, nor does Figure 3 show,
that in the transport position the mower deck will occupy space
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007