Appeal No. 2004-1500
Application No. 09/736,673
means for electrically controlling movement of the tool and
for electrically selecting one of the plurality of predetermined
tire-mounting paths in response to the size of the rim and tire to
be mounted.
The references set forth below are relied upon by the Examiner
as evidence of obviousness:
Onuma 4,830,079 May 16, 1989
Corghi 5,472,034 Dec. 5, 1995
Claims 9-12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Onuma in view of Corghi.
We refer to the brief and reply brief and to the answer for a
complete discussion of the opposing viewpoints expressed by the
Appellants and by the Examiner concerning this rejection.
OPINION
For the reasons which follow, the above noted rejection cannot
be sustained.
The Examiner acknowledges that the appealed claims distinguish
over Onuma by way of the independent claim 9 requirement that the
bead-mounting tool be moveable along “at least one non-circular
tire-mounting path.” In the Examiner’s view, however, it would
have been “obvious to one skilled in the art the time the invention
was made to modify Onuma by using a bead tool of the type that has
a ‘non-circular path’ of movement because Corghi suggests a bead
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