Appeal No. 2003-0510
Application No. 09/524,904
the upper shear blade therein, and a cross cutter blade (element
94 in Figures 6 and 11) removably mounted to the inside of the
tie plate, all as set forth in appellants’ claims. The examiner
further found (answer, pages 3-4) that the cross cutter blade of
Sederberg is “rotatable,” but that it is not necessarily
“indexable” as set forth in claim 1. To account for this alleged
deficiency, the examiner turned to Ramun.
Ramun discloses a heavy duty shear comprising a fixed lower
blade 34 and a movable upper blade 38. Of particular interest to
the examiner are Ramun’s shearing blade inserts 10. According to
Ramun (column 4, lines 31-40):
The movable blade 38 includes a plurality of
reversible, indexable blade inserts 10 positioned along
a side edge thereof. The blade inserts 10 are
removably attached to the movable blade 38 as will be
described hereinafter. Each of the blade inserts 10
includes a plurality of cutting edges along the side
edges thereof. When one of the respective cutting
edges of a blade insert 10 is worn down, a new cutting
edge can be presented by indexing or reversing the
blade insert 10 to present the new cutting edge in the
operative position. [Emphasis added.]
Ramun describes a similar set of reversible, indexable blade
inserts 10 for the lower blade 34 (column 4, lines 41-52).
Based on the above reference teachings, the examiner
concluded (answer, page 3) that it would have been obvious to one
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