Appeal No. 1998-1441
Application No. 08/294,779
matter. However, similar arguments have been submitted to, and dismissed by, our
reviewing court. See In re Gorman, 933 F.2d 982, 986, 18 USPQ2d 1885, 1888 (Fed. Cir.
1991) (“The criterion...is not the number of references, but what they would have meant to a
person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention.”)
One salient teaching is found in the Masaki reference, in Masaki’s description of
the prior art. In column 1, lines 47-61, Masaki refers specifically to the Samuelson article,
and observes that “erasing a projection image is carried out by applying a voltage
opposite in polarity to that for forming a projection image, between counter electrodes.”
Further, Samuelson provides, in the last full paragraph of the second column of page 451,
examples of both DC and AC voltage excitation of the structure.
The examiner points to Kubota (Answer, page 7) as suggesting light beam
modulation, in particular at page 260, column 2, lines 28-30 of the reference. Appellants
contend that “[t]he mere listing of a laser writing power, writing time and contrast is hardly a
teaching of light beam modulation as claimed....” (Brief, page 20.) The examiner
responds that “by definition, change of laser writing power and writing time constitute
modulation in the recording arts and...Appellants claim no more modulation than that taught
by Kubota et al.; in fact claim 55 merely recites modulation without further definition.”
(Answer, pages 18-19.)
We note that, consistent with the examiner’s interpretation of the term, “modulation”
is a broad and relatively non-specific word in the electrical arts. “Modulation” is defined as
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