Appeal No. 2006-0845 5
Application No. 10/113,524
prior art Figure 1 by providing elastomeric shims therein in order
to provide the advantages noted in Rivin ‘540.
Like appellant (brief, pages 3-5), we find no reasonable
suggestion or motivation in the applied prior art supporting the
examiner’s proposed modification of the simple basic wedge
mechanism of the AAPA in view of the clearly unrelated and
structurally distinct improved “Oldham” coupling in the rotary
power transmission system of Rivin ‘540. While the broad concepts
alluded to by the examiner in Rivin ‘540, when viewed through the
prism of hindsight, might appear to make the proposed combination
plausible, we do not believe that one of ordinary skill in the art
at the time of the present invention, absent the hindsight benefit
of appellant’s teachings in the present case, would have been led
to consider the complex rotary coupling of Rivin ‘540 when
evaluating the issue of minimizing friction between the contact
surfaces of the simple wedge mechanism of the AAPA. Like
appellant, we do not consider that there are adequate similarities
in either structure or function that would have led one of ordinary
skill in the art to look to torsional couplings for misaligned
rotary shafts to solve a problem relating to friction in a simple
wedge mechanism like that of the AAPA.
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