Appeal No. 2006-2116
Application No. 08/879,517
that the +45O angle cutting capability of Johnson’s saw blade 19
was enabled by the parallel positioning of the driving motor shaft
of driving motor 41 to the shaft of cutting member 19 or by the
relative size and/or configuration of the driving motor and its
housing, the drive train and its housing, the cutting member and
the workpiece base is immaterial. What is material is that
persons having ordinary skill in the art would have understood
from Johnson’s teaching that the sizes and configuration of his
composite driving motor 41, drive train 43, and cutting member 19
10 impart +45O capability to the cutting member.
In that light we turn to Langworthy’s disclosure. While
Langworthy appears not to identify a workpiece base for the
workpiece the surgical saw he describes was designed to cut, the
workpiece Langworthy is concerned with is a living body and the
workpiece base for the workpiece the surgical saw he describes was
designed to cut is an operating table. We conclude that persons
having ordinary skill in the art would have understood that a
surgeon utilizing Langworthy’s surgical saw would not have wanted
to turn the living workpiece to make angular cuts to both sides of
20 zero-tilt. Langworthy instructs (Langworthy, p. 1,
l. 26-35):
17
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