Appeal No. 2004-2071
Application No. 09/893,109
roller and its axial width, and that durability can be enhanced
by minimizing the axial width of the elastic roller to allow the
axial width of the rigid roller to be maximized.
As indicated above, claim 1 requires the elastic roller to
have a width which is 13 to 45% of the overall width of the
roller assembly and to have a thickness larger than the thickness
of the rigid roller by 5 to 25% of the thickness of the elastic
roller. The appellants submit that the rejection of claim 1 is
unsound because the Japanese reference does not teach, and would
not have suggested, a roller chain meeting these limitations.
The examiner, on the other hand, contends that the reference’s
drawings show elastic roller 16 as having a width and thickness
which fall within the specified ratio ranges (see page 3 in the
final rejection), and that
[w]hile the Japanese document does not show precise
ranges of width [and thickness] ratios in the drawings,
the present disclosure does not show any unexpected
results. It would have been obvious to one having
ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was
made to utilize the claimed ratios of width and
thickness, since it has been held that where the
general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the
prior art, discovering the optimum or workable ranges
involves only routine skill in the art. In re Aller,
[220 F.2d 454,] 105 USPQ 233 [(CCPA 1955)] [final
rejection, page 3].
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007