Appeal No. 1999-1782
Application 08/853,790
After fully considering the record in light of the arguments presented in the appellant's brief and reply
brief, and in the examiner's answer, we conclude that claims 1 and 9 are patentable over the
combination of Kerr and Hayward. The rejection under § 103(a) therefore will not be sustained.
Initially, appellant argues that Hayward is nonanalogous art (brief, page 7). We disagree,
because even if Hayward might not be considered to be from the field of appellant's endeavor, it meets
the second of the two criteria for analogous art enumerated in In re Clay, 966 F.2d 656, 658, 23
USPQ2d 1058, 1060 (Fed. Cir. 1992), in that it "is reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with
which the inventor is involved," i.e., the problem of recording the opening or closing of a closure
member. Moreover, it is questionable whether appellant can now argue that Hayward is not analogous
art, in view of the disclosure in his specification (page 3, line 31 to page 4, line 2) that another Hayward
patent (No. 5,447,344) showing a similar electronic seal, is "of prior art interest." Cf. In re Schreiber,
128 F.3d 1473, 1479, 44 USPQ2d 1429, 1433 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Turning to the merits of the rejection, and noting that Hayward discloses that his apparatus
could be used for sealing "bank vaults, security boxes, deed boxes or other containers where access is
allowed only to authorised persons" (col.2, lines 59 to 62), we agree with the examiner that, as a
general proposition, it would have been obvious in view of Hayward to provide the container of Kerr
with a random number generating device which would be actuated
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