Appeal No. 2006-1463 Page 3
Application No. 10/703,932
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration
to the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a
consequence of our review, we make the following determinations.
Each of the appellants’ method claims 1-8 requires steps of feeding sheets
along a path to the bottom of a stack, and either shifting the stack laterally from
one position to another position lateral of the path and back to the one position or
selectively shifting a stacker carriage on which the sheets are accumulated between
one position and another position while feeding the sheets. Tsai discloses a sheet
stacking offsetting system for the offset stacking of sheets or sets of sheets being
outputted by a printer or other reproduction apparatus, the system comprising a
stacking tray that is reciprocatingly moved back and forth between two positions
by rotation of a disk or crank with an eccentric pin cam 18 so that sheets can be
stacked in offset sheet stacks 14, 16, as illustrated in Figure 2. The examiner
concedes that Tsai fails to disclose feeding sheets to the bottom of the stack.
Citing as motivation the disclosure of Irvine (col. 1, ll. 57-64), the examiner
contends that it would have been obvious to modify Tsai by feeding printed sheets
to the bottom of the stack, “as disclosed by Irvine, for the purpose of preventing
sheets from binding, bending, tearing, or failing to fully enter a stack as a result of
gravity feeding” (answer, p. 3).
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007