Appeal 2007-2031
Application 10/905,818
the elements of Heckman, Pepper, and Faber combined by the Examiner performs
the same function when combined as it does in the prior art. Thus, such a
combination would have yielded predictable results. See Sakraida, 425 U.S. at
282, 189 USPQ at 453.
Claim 19 is a combination which only unites old elements with no change in
their respective functions and which yields predictable results. Thus, the claimed
subject matter likely would have been obvious under KSR. In addition, neither
Appellant’s Specification nor Appellant’s arguments present any evidence that the
substitution of screw drive motors for pneumatic actuators is uniquely challenging
or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art. In fact, Faber teaches screw drive
motors as one possible alternative for a linear actuator that might be substituted for
either a hydraulic or pneumatic actuator (Finding of Fact 7). Moreover, the screw
drive motors of Faber are a technique that has been used to improve one device
(the lift mechanism of Faber), and one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize
that it would improve similar devices in the same manner.
Because Appellant has not shown that the application of the Faber screw
motors to the cover moving mechanism of Heckman would have been beyond the
skill of one of ordinary skill in the art, we find using the technique would have
been obvious. Under those circumstances, the Examiner did not err in holding that
it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the
invention was made to replace the pneumatic actuators of Heckman with the screw
drive motors of Faber to avoid the need of pneumatic circuits and switch means for
them, which may leak leading to inoperativeness of the device (Answer 7),
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