Appeal No. 2004-1207 Page 5
Application No. 09/759,411
with the chute to a second position wherein the notch is aligned with a vertical discharge
opening 26 (see Figure 6). A first air line means supplies air through air line 45 for
moving the slide toward the second position against the force of a spring 42 and directs
an air stream via line 51 through an air passage 50 including an inclined segment 53
(Figure 7) which communicates with the discharge opening 26. The fastener feed
assembly further includes a second air line means for directing a stream of air into
contact with the head of a fastener positioned in the notch 35 when the slide is in the
second position to positively move the fastener laterally into the discharge opening 26.
It is in this second air line means that the examiner finds suggestion to provide a gas
contact arrangement for moving the fasteners of Lamb from the cap feeding chamber
52 to the cap holding chamber 54. According to the examiner, such a modification
would have been obvious “for the purpose of reducing cost and increasing reliability by
decreasing complexity as [taught] in column 1, lines 23-29 [of Young]" (answer, page 5).
We recognize that Young teaches that
the known feed or escapement assemblies are complex, in
that they utilize mechanical mechanisms to feed the
fasteners into the discharge tube leading to the screwdriver.
This complexity increases the cost of the assembly and
reduces its reliability [column 1, lines 24-29].
Given the substantial structural differences between the types of fastener driving
apparatus discussed by Young and the cap feed apparatus of Lamb, we find no
suggestion, however, in Young’s teaching of an air puff to move fasteners in a fastener
feed device laterally from a notch in a slide toward a gravity-fed discharge tube, in a
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