Appeal No. 2004-1523
Application 09/506,920
web by drawing and tightening the web against the first entrance
edge of the first blade member during a folding operation.
Suffice to say that the examiner’s assertion that one skilled in
the art “would deem it inherent” that the material in Smithe
would be drawn and tightened against the first entrance edge of
the blade member (48) by operation of the vacuum at apertures
(26), is based on total speculation and conjecture.
As is apparent from reading Smithe at column 5, lines 7-34,
the envelope blanks (70) are advanced along a horizontal feed
path (20) through the folding mechanism (10) by a transport
device (12) which includes a plurality of endless belts (16)
extending around driven rollers (18) and a vacuum table (24)
positioned below the belts. See Figures 1 and 4. Air is drawn
through apertures (26) in the table (24) by a vacuum created by
evacuation of air from a vacuum box (not shown) positioned below
the table (24) and the vacuum force is said to be exerted at a
magnitude to maintain the blanks fixed on the belts (16) so that
when the blanks pass through the folding mechanism (10) the edge
portions of the blanks are folded along the desired score line
(e.g., 76).
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