Appeal No. 2004-1523
Application 09/506,920
Regarding the rejection of process claims 16, 17, 21, 23,
24, 27, and 38 through 40 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being
anticipated by Smithe, the examiner has again pointed to the
apertures (26) in the vacuum table (24) of Smithe as meeting the
last step set forth in independent claim 16. We again note that
there is no basis to conclude that the vacuum force applied to
the blanks (70) by apertures (26) would necessarily provide
control of a first portion of the blanks by urging the blanks
against the vertically oriented folding edge (62) of the blade
member (48, 60) at any point in the folding process, let alone at
the point on guide member (60) located under roller (18) pointed
to by the examiner. Thus, we also will not sustain the examiner’s
rejection of claims 16, 17, 21, 23, 24, 27, and 38 through 40
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by Smithe.
The next rejection applied by the examiner is that of claims
8 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Smithe in view of Osborn. Like appellant, it is apparent to us
that adding the regulator mechanism associated with the vacuum
module of Osborn to the vacuum apparatus of Smithe would not
supply or otherwise account for the deficiencies of Smithe noted
in our discussions above. Thus, we will not sustain the
rejection of dependent claims 8 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
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