Appeal No. 2004-0241 Page 6
Application No. 09/773,366
642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner to provide a reason why one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine
reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ
972, 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).
The first of these rejections is that claims 1-3 are unpatentable over Zugel in view
of Cucchi. The examiner finds all of the subject matter in these claims to be disclosed
or taught by Zugel, except for a brake to slow the feeding mechanism during stock
feeding. However, it is the examiner’s view that such is taught by Cucchi, and it would
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add brakes to the Zugel system
“to provide reliable braking free from de-synchronization with the machine tool” (Answer,
page 5).
Zugel is directed to a high-low speed drive system for multiple spindle machines.
Zugel states in the opening paragraphs that in such machines low speed is used during
the machining operation and high speed is provided to accomplish a number of portions
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