Appeal No. 2005-0648
Application No. 09/824,980
examiner has established a prima facie case of obviousness with
respect to appealed independent claims 9 and 16 which the
appellants have failed to successfully rebut with argument or
evidence of nonobviousness. Oetiker, 977 F.2d at 1445, 24 USPQ2d
at 1444. It follows that we also hereby the examiner’s Section
103 rejection of these independent claims and of nonargued
dependent claims 10-13, 17-19, 22 and 23 as being unpatentable
over Kliman, the admitted prior art and Nishiyama in view of
McCann and Ackermann.
THE REJECTION OF CLAIMS 6, 14 AND 20 OVER THE PRIOR ART DISCUSSED
ABOVE AND FURTHER IN VIEW OF TRAGO
It is the examiner’s fundamental position that it would have
been obvious for an artisan to provide the modified switched
reluctance motor of Kliman with an end cap arrangement of the
type taught by Trago in order to protect the stator. We agree.
The appellants argue that “Trago . . . fails to teach or suggest
end caps and retainer sections for individual stator segment
cores of a stator” because “[t]he disclosure of Trago . . . is
limited to a single-piece stator (see Figure 7) and motor housing
end caps (25, 26) that house the motor components” (brief, page
12). This argument is unconvincing because it is implicitly
premised upon an incorrect test for obviousness. Contrary to the
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007