Appeal 2007-0022
Application 10/148,935
used with a variety of flywheels including conventional isotropic steel flywheels,
as a teaching that the flywheel depicted in Figure 6 is made of isotropic steel discs
is also misplaced (Answer 9). Rabenhorst is silent as to the specific material or
construction of rotor 112 of the embodiment in Figure 6 (Finding of Fact 5).
It may be reasonable to construe that Figure 6 is depicting a flywheel rotor
comprising anisotropic elements wound about the hub, because the rotor 112 of
Figure 6 is depicted in a similar fashion to rotor 16 of Figure 1 (Findings of Fact 4-
7). It is conjecture, however, to read Rabenhorst’s general statement as to the
variety of different types of flywheel material that could be used with Rabenhorst’s
elastic joint, to provide a teaching that the rotor 112 of Figure 6 is comprised of
steel discs. As such, we find no teaching or suggestion in Rabenhorst of a flywheel
cylinder with a plurality of steel discs connected together where the discs are free
of axial through holes (Finding of Fact 9). As such, we will not sustain the
Examiner’s rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) of independent claim 1 or its
dependent claim 7 as anticipated by Rabenhorst.
The Examiner admits that Hoshino fails to cure the deficiency of Rabenhorst
(Finding of Fact 10). As such, we will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of
claims 1-11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Hoshino and
Rabenhorst.
The Examiner bases his findings of obviousness of claims 1, 7, 12, 13, 22,
and 24 on a motivation to combine, inter alia, the teachings of Nakayama and
Rabenhorst (Findings of Fact 13, 14). In particular, the Examiner found it would
have been obvious to modify the discs of Nakayama with the hole-less discs of
13
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