Appeal No. 2004-0077 Page 2
Application No. 09/674,681
BACKGROUND
The appellant’s invention relates to a an aircraft landing gear. An understanding
of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim 1, which appears in
the appendix to the Brief. All of the claims were rejected by the examiner under 35
U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Lucien U.S. Patent No. 2,982,500, issued
May 2, 1961.
As we stated in our decision, the appellant’s invention is directed to a
mechanism for pivotally retracting and extending the landing gear of an aircraft which
causes the landing gear to move along an essentially arcuate path upon retraction in
such a manner as to clear obstacles in the restricted space in which it must be
operated. According to the claims, this is accomplished by causing the pivoting
retraction movement of the leg of the landing gear to occur about “an angularly variable
pivot axis.” A key issue in evaluating the patentability of the claims resided in the
interpretation to be given to this phrase, and it formed the basis for our reversal of the
examiner’s rejection over the Lucien reference.
In this regard, on page 4 of our decision, with reference being made to the
drawings and to the explanation in the specification of the preferred embodiments, we
interpreted the phrase “angularly variable pivot axis” to mean that “[t]he angle of the
pivot axis with respect to point 19 varies as link 30 pivots about point 33, that is, the
pivot axis orientation after retraction is not parallel to the pivot axis when the gear is in
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