Appeal No. 2004-1908
Application No. 09/176,374 Page 6
rectangular mandrel. See column 6, lines 32-54 of Takeuchi.
Alternatively, Takeuchi discloses that shaping of the cell can
occur after a winding operation by pressing the cell after
forming a spirally wound cell. See column 6, lines 60-67 of
Takeuchi.
According to the examiner (final rejection, pages 4 and 5),
the invention as a whole would have been obvious
to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made because one of skill [in the art]
would have known that the anode-cathode subassembly
could be shaped to have a rectangular cross-section
after being formed on a mandrel of non-rectangular
cross-section. Takeuchi teaches an alternate method
for shaping the subassembly. The method includes after
the subassembly has been wound (on a circular mandrel
for example) or coiled the subassembly is placed in a
suitable pressing fixture including jaws or pressing
members which act on opposite surface portions of the
subassembly to force or shape the combination to have a
substantially rectangular cross-section. See col. 6,
lin[es] 59-67 and Fig.13 of the Takeuchi reference.
Therefore[,] one of [ordinary] skill [in the art] would
be motivated to combine Machida and Takeuchi because
the Takeuchi reference discloses shaping an anode-
cathode subassembly to have a rectangular cross section
by using a mandrel of rectangular cross-section or by
first forming the subassembly on a non-rectangular
mandrel and then pressing the subassembly to have a
rectangular cross-section.
Furthermore one of [ordinary] skill [in the art]
would be motivated to use the mandrel of rectangular
cross-section of Takeuchi for the mandrel of Machida
because Takeuchi teaches that if a rectangular shape is
desired a mandrel of rectangular cross-section may be
used or a circular subassembly may be pressed to obtain
the desired rectangular shape. Depending on the
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007