Appeal No. 2003-1915 Page 5 Application No. 09/423,232 Applying this guidance to the situation at hand leads us to agree with the appellants that this rejection of claim 82 is defective and should not be sustained. Our reasoning follows. Hahne ‘651 discloses a machine for compressing a stack of objects comprising two opposed side walls and two pressing end elements. While the Hahne ‘651 apparatus also includes electrodes located at the side walls to charge the stack, it does not disclose an electrode positioned at the end of the stack, much less an electrode that is a metal plate in contact with the stack and which is part of one of the pressing elements. In Hahne ‘257 an electrode 13 is located “above stack 6 [of the objects]” (column 2, line 20, emphasis added). As shown in Figure 2, electrode 13 is spaced from the top of the stack of objects, and there is no teaching in this reference that electrode 13 is in contact with the stack. This being the case, it is our view that no suggestion is present in Hahne ‘257 that would have motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize a metal plate as a charging electrode, to place it in contact with the end of the stack, and to do so by making it part of one of the two end pressing elements, as required by claim 82. The combined teachings of Hahne ‘651 and Hahne ‘257 thus fail to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to the subject matter recited in independent claim 82, and we will not sustain the rejection of claim 82 or, it follows, of claims 83-90 and 93-103, which depend therefrom.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007