Appeal No. 2005-2752
Application No. 10/443,245
As explained by the examiner, the original specification provides
no disclosure that the fence and chute walls move such equivalent
distances when the hopper accommodates a larger casing. Also,
“[a]pplicants’ figure 10 shows that the dimension A of the fence
wall - 32 is larger than the dimension A of the chute wall - 34
in that the slope of movement of the fence wall disclosed in
figure 10 is steeper than the slope of movement of the chute
wall” (page 7 of answer, penultimate paragraph). Manifestly, the
two distances designated ‘A’ depicted in figure 10 are not equal.
Hence, we cannot subscribe to appellants’ statement that “the
dimension lines A” illustrate how the fence wall 32 and chute
wall 34 move in equivalent distances away from the axis of the
stuffing tube 16 as larger casings are used” (page 6 of the
principal brief, third paragraph).
We now turn to the examiner’s Section 102 rejection. We
fully concur with appellants that Kasai fails to describe the
presently claimed “hopper having a downwardly sloping bottom
terminating in a downwardly extending fence wall [with] a chute
wall substantially vertically disposed and being in lateral
spaced relation to the fence wall to form a substantially
vertical passageway” (claim 2). While the examiner states that a
wall 14 of Kasai terminates in the fence wall 19, walls 14 and
-4-
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