Appeal 2007-2421
Application 10/289,793
showing that where the Examiner relies on a combination of
disclosures, the Examiner failed to provide sufficient evidence to
show that one having ordinary skill in the art would have done what
Applicants did. United States v. Adams, 383 U.S. 39 (1966).
ANALYSIS
There are two groups of rejection on appeal, the rejection of
claims 1-18 and the rejection of claim 19. These two groups are
discussed below.
i) The Rejections of Claims 1-18
The Examiner and JFE agree that claims 1-18 are directed to a
method of manufacturing a hot-dip metal strip where no submersed
support rolls are employed in the molten metal bath.
The Examiner has rejected claims 1-18 based upon Kawamura
alone or in combination with various references. The Examiner relies
upon Kawamura as describing a hot-dip metal strip process that
utilizes a molten metal bath that lacks a submersed support roll.
(Answer, pages 3-4). In particular, the Examiner states that
Kawamura Figure 1 depicts a bath that does not include submersed
support rolls. (Answer, p. 9).
JFE states that Kawamura does not mention the removal of a
submersed support roll from the conventional tank and that one of
ordinary skill in the art would understand that submersed rolls were
necessarily present. (Appeal Brief, pages 12-14). JFE relies upon a
declaration from Mr. Kawamura, a named coinventor of the
Kawamura reference. Mr. Kawamura testifies that he did not even
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