Appeal No. 2004-0664
Application 09/756,683
reviewable by petition to the Director rather than by appeal to this Board (see In re
Hengehold, 440 F.2d 1395, 1403-1404, 169 USPQ 473, 479 (CCPA 1971)), and hence
will not be further addressed in this decision.
II. The 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claims 1 through 14 as being unpatentable over
Leifeld
Leifeld discloses “an apparatus associated with a carding machine, for
recognizing foreign bodies, particularly trash particles, neps, seed coat fragments and
the like in a textile material such as cotton or chemical fibers” (column 1, lines 14
through 17). The apparatus comprises a video camera 18 for viewing the web 16 and
an on-line measuring system, which includes a computer 30, in communication with the
camera for recognizing and evaluating trash, seed coat fragments and neps according
to their number, type and size (see column 4, line 39, through column 5, line 50).
The examiner (see pages 4 and 8 in the answer) concedes that the Leifeld
apparatus and the manner in which it operates do not meet the limitation in
independent claim 1 requiring an evaluating means for determining a distribution of
useful fibers per area unit in the fiber web or the corresponding limitation in
independent claim 2 requiring the step of determining by the evaluating device a
distribution of useful fibers per area unit in the fiber web. The rationale advanced by
the examiner to cure these shortcomings (see pages 4 through 10 in the answer) stems
from an impermissible hindsight reconstruction of the claimed invention having no
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007