Appeal No. 2005-0324
Application No. 09/390,824
connector, item 73, meets appellant’s claimed bulkhead.2 As stated supra we
find that a skilled artisan would recognize that PCI cards often have external
connectors and that Moss teaches apertures in the card carriers. Further, we
find that the skilled artisan would be motivated to use circuit cards such as those
shown in Cranston, which have external connectors on a bulkhead. We note that
as depicted in Cranston’s figure 5 and Moss’s figures 7 & 8, placing Cranston’s
circuit card into Moss’s card carrier would result in the external connector, item
73, being adjacent the aperture in the handle of Moss’s card carrier. Thus, we
find that the examiner’s rejection has set forth sufficient motivation to combine
the references.
Further, we find additional motivation to combine the references in the
nature of the problem to be solved. As stated supra the problem to be solved by
Moss to make installing and removing expansion cards less time consuming by
changing from a vertical insertion method which requires removal of the chassis
cover to a horizontal insertion method. Cranston teaches a card cage, a
chassis, in which the expansion cards are vertically inserted. Thus, we find that
the nature of the problem to be solved in Moss is to change chassis in which
expansion cards are vertically installed, such as the card cage of Cranston’s
device, to allow the cards to be horizontally inserted. Accordingly, we sustain the
2 The term bulkhead is discussed in appellant’s specification, on page 2, as “the bulkheads of
the cards are located on a side of a card that adjoins the lower edge. Thus, the bulkhead is
oriented parallel to the direction of the card’s insertion and extraction and orthogonal to the edge
having the system connector.”
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