Appeal No. 2005-0141
Application No. 09/656,683
We cannot sustain the respective obviousness rejections of
appellant’s claims for the reasons given below.
Independent claim 1 addresses an elongated electric motor
that includes a stationary bearing body with a cavity, and a
coiled member contained in the cavity having an outer portion
that frictionally engages an inner wall of a stator, preventing
rotation of the bearing body and stabilizing a rotatable shaft
installed within the stator.3 Claim 4 recites a coiled spring
that comprises a plurality of coiled member segments that are
spaced apart from each other.
As recognized by the examiner (answer, page 4), the patent
to Beavers teaches an elongated electric motor with a corrugated
spring member, not a coiled member, mounted in a cavity. To
overcome the deficiency of Beavers, the examiner proffers the
Balsells patent. However, like appellant (main brief, pages 3
and 4 and reply brief, pages 2 and 4), we readily perceive that
3 We note that independent claim 8, akin to independent
claim 1, sets forth an elongated electric motor that includes a
stationary bearing body and a metallic coiled member with an
outer portion that frictionally engages an inner wall of a
stator, preventing rotation of the bearing body and stabilizing a
rotatable shaft installed within the stator.
5
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