Ex parte Wemple

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Jul 12, 1999

08696283 (B.P.A.I. Jul. 12, 1999)

Application for patent filed August 13, 1996. 1
THIS OPINION WAS NOT WRITTEN FOR PUBLICATION
The opinion in support of the decision being entered today (1) was
not written for publication in a law journal and (2) is not
binding precedent of the Board.
Paper No. 11
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________
BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________
Ex parte JONATHON L. WEMPLE
____________
Appeal No. 99-0201
Application No. 08/696,2831
____________
ON BRIEF
____________
Before ABRAMS, McQUADE and CRAWFORD, Administrative Patent
Judges.
ABRAMS, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
This is an appeal from the decision of the examiner
finally rejecting claims 1-7, 9-14 and 19, which constitute
all of the claims remaining of record in the application.
Appeal No. 99-0201
Application No. 08/696,283
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The appellant's invention is directed to a roller for a
brake cam. The claims on appeal have been reproduced in an
appendix to the Brief.
THE REFERENCES
The references relied upon by the examiner to support the
final rejection are:
Majewski 4,503,953 Mar. 12,
1985
Guilford 5,531,137 Jul. 2,
1996
THE REJECTION
Claims 1-7, 9-14 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §
103 as being unpatentable over Majewski in view of Guilford.
The rejection is explained in the Examiner’s Answer.
The opposing viewpoints of the appellant are set forth in
the Brief.
OPINION
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the prior art would have suggested to one of ordinary skill
in the art. See, for example, In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413,
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425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981). In establishing a prima
facie case of obviousness, it is incumbent upon the examiner
to provide a reason why one of ordinary skill in the art would
have been led to modify a prior art reference or to combine
reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention. See
Ex parte Clapp, 227 USPQ 972, 973 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985).
To this end, the requisite motivation must stem from some
teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole
or from the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary
skill in the art and not from the appellant's disclosure.
See, for example, Uniroyal, Inc. V. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837
F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434, 1052 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
The appellant’s invention is directed to improvements in
the rollers which operate upon the cams that cause brake shoes
to move into contact with brake drums. The problem to which
the appellant has directed his inventive efforts is the
elimination of the fracturing of the corners of these rollers
due to misalignment. As manifested in independent claim 1,
the structure that accomplishes this is defined as a
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Application No. 08/696,283
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cam contacting surface including a central
cylindrical portion and curved edge surfaces at said
axial ends of said cam contacting surface, said
curved edge surfaces having a constant radius of
curvature, said curved edges [sic, edge surfaces]
extending over an axial distance that is a
substantial portion of the axial length of said cam
contacting surface.
Similar language appears in claim 9, the other independent
claim.
The examiner finds in Majewski all of the structure
recited in claim 1 except for the curved edge surfaces. It is
the examiner’s position that this feature is taught by
Guilford, and that it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to curve the edges of the Majewski
roller in view of the teachings of Guilford.
Majewski discloses a roller for a brake actuating cam,
although the focus of the patent is on retaining the roller
rather than the problem attacked by the appellant, which is
not even mentioned in Majewski. As shown in Figure 3, each
Majewski roller comprises a cylindrical roller surface 21,
which is flanked by tapered portions (unnumbered), ends 52,
and cylindrical trunnions 22. The edges of the roller
surfaces clearly are not curved.
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Guilford is not concerned with brake shoe actuating
systems. This reference discloses a cam follower assembly in
which the outer ring is mounted on a shaft and a plurality of
sets of roller bearings are interposed between the outer ring
and the shaft for the purpose of accommodating end thrust
(column 1). Figures 5 and 6 show an embodiment in which each
roller has a “crowned end portion” (120, 121). The patent
states that the preferred crown drop and crown width will be
such that “the axial ends of the rollers . . . will comprise a
suitable area for thrust-engaging contact with the flanges 14
and 15 of the bearing outer ring 13, and with the annular
thrust ring 25,” and that the crown width will be “of a
dimension suitable for maintaining the roller surfaces . . . a
distance away from the lubrication channel” (column 5).
Guilford does mention “fatigue under misaligned conditions” in
the course of explaining the invention (column 5). However,
there is no explicit teaching in the reference that the curved
end portions of the rollers are for the purpose of protecting
the rollers from damage resulting from misalignment, nor does
that appear to be an inherent result, given the structure and
operation of the assembly. It therefore is our view that one
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of ordinary skill in the art would have appreciated that the
curvature at the ends of the rollers is provided for the
purpose of permitting lubricant to protect the components by
circulating around the rollers while still providing
sufficient area on the end faces of the rollers to transmit
axial thrust, and not to protect the edges of the rollers from
being crushed.
In the brake system disclosed by Majewski no lubricant is
circulated around the rollers, and any end thrust that might
be generated would appear to be accommodated through annular
end faces at 52 and 54, which already are of reduced diameter.
There thus would appear to be no reason to provide the rollers
with curved surfaces. The mere fact that the prior art
structure could be modified does not make such a modification
obvious unless the prior art suggests the desirability of
doing so. See In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125,
1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984). We fail to perceive any teaching,
suggestion or incentive which would have led one of ordinary
skill in the art to provide modify the Majewski rollers in the
manner proposed by the examiner. From our perspective, the
only suggestion to do so is found in the luxury of the
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hindsight afforded one who first viewed the appellant’s
disclosure. This, of course, is improper. See In re Fritch,
972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
In view of the above, it is our conclusion that the
teachings of the two applied references fail to establish a
prima facie case of obviousness with regard to the subject
matter of either of the independent claims. This being the
case, the rejection of independent claims 1 and 9 and, it
follows, of those claims depending therefrom, cannot be
sustained.
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Application No. 08/696,283
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SUMMARY
The rejection of claims 1-7, 9-14 and 19 is not
sustained,
The decision of the examiner is reversed.
REVERSED
NEAL E. ABRAMS )
Administrative Patent Judge )
)
)
)
) BOARD OF PATENT
JOHN P. McQUADE ) APPEALS
Administrative Patent Judge ) AND
) INTERFERENCES
)
)
)
MURRIEL E. CRAWFORD )
Administrative Patent Judge )
Appeal No. 99-0201
Application No. 08/696,283
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bae
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Laura M. Slenzak
Rockwell International Corporation
2135 West Maple Road
Troy, MI 48084-7186