Appeal No. 2004-0410
Application No. 09/509,415
comprises a pick and place means for grasping a predetermined
quantity of the sticks to form a layer of a pallet, one at a time
in succession, and maintaining each stick in a predetermined
orientation and a moving support for a racking supply roll
including control means for shifting the roll back and forth to
lay the wrapping across the top of each row of sticks added to
the assembling pallet. Similarly, the method comprises receiving
a succession of individual cylindrically shaped sticks each in a
predetermined orientation, placing the sticks sequentially into
rows of each predetermined number of sticks, and passing wrapping
material from a roll over the last placed row following a back
and forth motion over the successively loaded rows of sticks
until a desired number of rows is automatically built up into a
complete pallet. Further details of this appealed subject matter
are set forth in representative independent claims 3 and 11, a
copy of which is appended to this decision.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the
examiner as evidence of obviousness:
Mojden et al. (Mojden ‘010) 4,537,010 Aug. 27, 1985
Yourgalite et al. (Yourgalite) 5,005,335 Apr. 9, 1991
Mojden et al. (Mojden ‘278) 5,607,278 Mar 4, 1997
Rahman 5,794,416 Aug. 18, 1998
2
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007