Appeal No. 2006-0822
Application No. 10/054,253
BACKGROUND
The appellant's invention relates to an adjustable disc spring system and
method of utilizing such a system. A copy of the claims under appeal is set forth in
the appendix to the appellant's brief. Claim 16, which is representative of the
claimed invention, is reproduced infra.
The examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Teeri US 3,836,195 Sep. 17, 1974
Rode US 4,067,585 Jan. 10, 1978
The following rejections are before us for review.1
Claims 16, 24, 25 and 282 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being
anticipated by Teeri.
Claims 1-6, 8, 9, 13, 14 and 29-32 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Teeri in view of Rode.
Rather than reiterate in their entirety the conflicting viewpoints advanced by
the examiner and the appellant regarding this appeal, we make reference to the
1 Normally, a rejection will be assumed to be withdrawn because of an examiner's
failure to carry such rejection forward and to restate it in the answer. Ex parte
Emm, 118 USPQ 180, 181 (Bd. App. 1957). The rejection of claim 7 under 35
U.S.C. § 103 set forth in the final rejection (mailed July 7, 2004) is therefore
assumed to be withdrawn, in view of the examiner’s failure to restate it in the
answer, and has not been reviewed as part of this appeal.
2 As explained by the examiner (answer, p. 3), the examiner inadvertently included
claim 28 in the rejection based on Teeri in view of Rode in the final rejection.
2
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