Appeal 2006-2180
Application 10/752,180
with or without additional wax or polishing liquid. Thus, Appellants’
further arguments that the use of Nagayama’s polishing pad and motor in
place of Mendelson’s polishing roll and motor would destroy the principles
of operation of Mendelson’s floor cleaning device fail as well.
Turning now to the issue of the placement of the polishing pad
vis-à-vis the scrubbing roll, we find that one of ordinary skill in this art
would not have found in or inferred from the disclosure in Mendelson any
direction on the placement of the scrubbing roll vis-à-vis the polishing roll.
Thus, we agree with the Examiner that this person would have placed these
components on Mendelson’s platform or carriage 10 in a manner which
would provide a workable or optimum arrangement for the conditions in
which that person intended to operate the floor cleaning device. We find no
evidence establishing the criticality of the distance between the scrubber and
burnisher components specified in claim 1 in the parts of the written
description in the specification relied on by Appellants which merely
indicates that Appellants exercised judgment in placing these components
and not that this exercise achieved an unobvious result (Reply Br. 4-6). See
In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456-58, 105 USPQ 233, 235-37 (CCPA 1955)
(“[W]here general conditions of a claim are disclosed in the prior art, it is
not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine
experimentation.”); cf. In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1577-78, 16 USPQ2d
1934, 1936-37 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“The law is replete with cases in which the
difference between the claimed invention and the prior art is some range or
other variable within the claims. [Citations omitted.] These cases have
consistently held that in such a situation, the applicant must show that the
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007