Appeal No. 2005-2437
Application No. 09/682,642
The appellant argues that Nagashima discloses a roller or
needle bearing, not a plain bearing (brief, page 4; reply brief,
page 2).
The appellant’s claim 16 requires a plain bearing carried by
a stator shell’s second end cap for journaling the end of a rotor
shaft spaced from a drive portion. For the second end cap the
examiner relies upon the right end of Nagashima’s motor housing
to which the numeral 2 is pointing in figure 1 (answer, page 9).
That end cap journals the end of the rotor shaft spaced from the
drive portion which is the portion on the motor’s left side in
figure 1. Nagashima does not state that the bearing on the right
side is a plain bearing. However, the bearings on the left of
the motor are shown as roller bearings, the bearing which the
examiner relies upon as being a plain bearing is not shown as a
roller bearing, and the appellant states that the common practice
was to use a plain bearing to journal the shaft at the end of a
rotor shaft opposite the drive portion (specification, page 1,
¶ 0003). Hence, one of ordinary skill in the art would have
interpreted Nagashima’s figure 1 as disclosing a plain bearing on
the right side of the motor.
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