Appeal No. 2002-1023 Page 4
Application No. 09/387,399
combined teachings of Baumuller and Beierlorzer. In particular, and with reference
initially to claim 7, the examiner asserts that Baumuller discloses or teaches all except
for the adjustable speed control mechanism and the control member outside of the
housing (Answer, pages 3 and 6). However, the examiner is of the view that the
addition of the adjustable speed control would have been obvious in view of the
teachings of Beierlorzer, and that the appellants have admitted in their specification that
the location of a control member outside of the housing was known in the art at the time
of their invention. The appellants provide arguments in response to both of these
contentions.
Baumuller discloses a cushioning conversion machine in which crumpling of a
web of a web of stock material is achieved by providing an upstream feeding
component that feeds the web toward a downstream feeding component at a rate faster
than the web can pass through the downstream feeding component, in the same
fashion as in the appellants’ machine. However, Baumuller does not disclose or teach
the claimed adjustable speed control mechanism or the control member outside of the
housing, as required by claim 7. The Baumuller teaching with regard to controlling the
speed of the web material through the treatment zone is not to vary the ratios of the
2(...continued)
973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some teaching,
suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge generally available to one of
ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure. See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-
Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
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