Appeal No. 2004-1530
Application No. 09/870,770
derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which reads as
follows:
1. A differential assembly comprising:
a rotatable differential case;
a pair of side gears rotatably mounted within said
differential case; and
a set of spaced apart differential pinion mate gears rotatably
supported by apinion shaft and drivingly engaging said side gears
to allow differential rotation therebetween;
wherein a sum of a first number of teeth of any one of said
side gears and a second number of teeth of any one of said pinion
mate gears is less than nineteen.
As evidence of obviousness, the examiner relies upon
appellant’s admitted prior art (AAPA) as set forth in the
application specification at page 1, line 15, through page 2, line
12; and page 6, line 14, through page 7, line 13.
Claims 1-9 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over AAPA.
Reference is made to appellant’s main and reply briefs (Paper
Nos. 10 and 12) and to the final rejection and examiner’s answer
(Paper Nos. 6 and 11) for the respective positions of appellant and
the examiner regarding the merits of this rejection. In addition,
2
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