Appeal No. 2006-0887
Application No. 09/053,832
become redundant and that, consequently, a person of ordinary skill in the art
would not have been motivated to additionally provide Chambers with such a work
bed. As we explained above, the channel 120 defined between the wear strips 114
of Baranski provides lateral centering of the belt, by engagement of belt ridge 156
therewith, between the pulleys. One skilled in the art would have appreciated that
such centering is just as desirable in a horizontally-disposed belt arrangement to
counteract variations in side-loadings in the belt, which are recognized in the art as
an issue even in horizontally-disposed conveyor belts, as exemplified by Conrad
(col. 3, ll. 27-29). Accordingly, we find no error in the examiner’s determination
that the provision of a work bed provided with a groove aligned with the pulley
grooves for engaging the ridge or strip of the belt of Chambers would have been
obvious in order to provide lateral tracking or centering of the endless belt in the
region between the pulleys. The rejection of claim 28, as well as claims 29 and 30
which appellant has not argued separately apart from claim 28, as being
unpatentable over Chambers in view of Conrad and Baranski, is sustained.
We shall not sustain the rejection of claim 32 as being unpatentable over
Chambers in view of Conrad and Baranski. Claim 32 recites that the steps of
carrying the material toward and away from the processing unit are performed
without positive lateral edge contact of the material with the apparatus. The
appellant (brief, p. 12) argues that this feature is not taught or suggested in the
applied prior art and the examiner has not pointed out where such a teaching or
suggestion may be found in the references.
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