Appeal No. 97-1114 Page 22
Application No. 08/222,643
I take official notice that it is conventional for air traffic
controllers to assign different altitudes to different aircraft
in congested airspace in order to avoid mid-air collisions.
Given these considerations, and the fact that conventional
helicopters are quite capable of operating efficiently at the
relatively low altitudes of 400, 600, 800 and 1000 feet called
for in claim 14, I believe it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to provide the "system" suggested by
Kappus with helicopters operating over a plurality of commuting
routes of the type called for in claim 14, thus rendering claim
14 obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
As to the method of claim 17, the remarks of the previous
paragraph concerning the obvious method of operating a
conventional helicopter and the taking of official notice of how
air traffic controllers assign different altitudes apply. In
addition, the claim requirement of "contemporaneously" loading,
flying, and unloading passengers utilizing a plurality of
aircrafts operating between various terminals is nothing more
than what is done every day when commercial airlines operate
amongst a plurality of regional airports. Based on these
considerations, and the portions of the disclosure of Kappus
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