Appeal No. 2004-0531
Application 09/871/126
expressly addresses the no maintenance advantage of dry bearings
over bearings requiring periodic lubrication maintenance (column
1, lines 22 through 52). For these reasons, we sustain the
obviousness rejection of claim 1. As indicated (footnote 4), the
claimed feature of the self-lubricating member having a thickness
of up to 2mm would have been suggested by the prior art. Thus,
we also sustain the rejection of claim 7.
The argument of appellants fails to persuade this panel of
the Board that the content of claims 1 and 7 is patentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Contrary to the point of view advocated by
appellants (brief, pages 4 and 7), there is a basis or suggestion
in the art for combining or modifying the references, as
articulated above. Further, we explained above that appellants
have acknowledged the problem in the art (specification, page 1)
of pendulum armed machines (Hickman and Hart) at the time of the
present invention. Thus, from our perspective, to one having
ordinary skill in the art when appellants’ invention was made,
there was a suggestion in the art of the problem, contrary to
appellants’ point of view (brief, page 5). Clearly, the Adinoff
reference is appropriate and analogous prior art since it is
reasonably pertinent to the particular lubrication and bearing
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007