Appeal No. 2004-1052 Page 7
Application No. 09/848,132
INVENTION section of Winninger is known to be used mounted about a drive pulley
driven by an automobile engine.
For the reasons set forth above, claim 15 is not anticipated by Winninger.
Accordingly, the decision of the examiner to reject claim 15, and claims 16 to 19 and 22
to 25 dependent thereon, under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is reversed.
The obviousness rejection based on Winninger alone
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 15 to 17, 19, 22 to 24 and 26 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Winninger.
With regard to independent claim 15, Winninger's specific belt disclosed in the
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION section does not teach or suggest an endless
drive belt having a tensile modulus in the range of approximately 7000 N/mm/mm (1575
lbf/in/in) to approximately 10,000 N/mm/mm (2250 lbf/in/in). To supply this omission in
the teachings of Winninger, the examiner made a determination (answer, p. 3) that this
difference would have been obvious to an artisan as a matter of engineering design
choice. However, this determination has not been supported by any evidence that
would have led an artisan to arrive at an endless drive belt having a tensile modulus in
the range of approximately 7000 N/mm/mm (1575 lbf/in/in) to approximately 10,000
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