Appeal No. 2003-0510
Application No. 09/524,904
of ordinary skill in the art to provide the “various blades” of
Sederberg with “indexable” blades to extend the useful lives of
the blades, and thereby arrive at the subject matter of claim 1.
As further explained by the examiner in the “Response to
Argument” section on page 4 of the answer:
Both blades of Sederberg and Ramun are rotatable and
comparable, and accordingly, there is clear motivation
to combine the “rotatable” blade of Sederberg with the
“indexable” blade of Ramun. Moreover, the Examiner
takes the position that the rotatable blade of
Sederberg can be considered “indexable” and the
combination of Ramun is cited in the rejection because
the Appellant [sic, Appellants] differentiate the two
terms in his [sic, their] disclosure and Sederberg does
not use the term “indexable” in his disclosure.
The examiner’s position is well taken. First, we are in
accord with the examiner’s position to the effect that one of
ordinary skill in the art would have reasonably inferred from the
disclosure of Sederberg that the cross cutter blade 94 thereof
may be rotated and/or reversed so as to bring any one of the four
(4) long edges of the blade into a position where it would
function as the principal cutting edge of the cross cutter
blade.2 In this regard, Figures 6 and 11 of Sederberg illustrate
2In evaluating the teachings of the applied references, it
is proper to take into account not only the specific teachings of
each reference, but also the inferences which one skilled in the
art would reasonably have been expected to draw from the
disclosure. See In re Preda, 401 F.2d 825, 826, 159 USPQ 342,
5
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