Appeal No. 2004-0241 Page 7
Application No. 09/773,366
of the work cycle, including withdrawing the tool slides, indexing carriers, opening and
closing the collets, bringing the slides up to the work, as well as to “feed the bar stock”
(column 1, lines 27-33). The objective of the Zugel invention is to provide a drive
system that more smoothly changes the speed of the main drive shaft from high to low
speeds (column 2, lines 5-11).
While brakes are used in the Zugel system, contrary to the examiner’s assertion,
Zugel fails to disclose or teach a braking arrangement that is operated to slow the
speed of the feeder mechanism during stock feeding. In fact, as the above-noted
portion of the Zugel specification clearly states, feeding of the stock is accomplished at
high speed, with low speed being engaged only for the machining operations. Thus, in
addition to the shortcoming in Zugel regarding the lack of a brake, which is admitted by
the examiner, it is our position that this reference also fails to disclose or teach slowing
the speed of the feeder mechanism during stock feeding.
Cucchi discloses a positioning system for a rotary loader that feeds bars to a
lathe. As explained in column 1, a rotatable drum carrying the bar stock is braked and
located in position to feed the bars by the interaction of a plurality of pins 17 carried on
the drum with a cam surface 20. Cucchi teaches that after the drum is stopped in
rotation by the braking and positioning mechanism “the loader can perform,” which from
our perspective indicates that the feeder mechanism does not begin to operate, that is
to move the stock laterally into position to be worked, until after the brake means has
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