Appeal No. 1998-2480
Application No. 08/510,590
limitations of these claims are not separately argued. Appellants merely indicate that the reference to
Turnbull, employed in the rejection of these claims, fails to provide for the perceived deficiencies of
Kubo. As explained supra, however, we find no deficiencies in Kubo with regard to sustaining a
rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. 103.
Appellants argue that the additional limitation of the first braille word comprising a telephone access
number in claim 4 patentably distinguishes over the prior art. We disagree for the reasons supra. Once
the artisan would have been led to employ Kubo’s teachings to a prepaid telephone access card,
employing braille for the telephone access code would naturally flow.
The rejection of claims 1-6 and 8-20 under 35 U.S.C. 103 is sustained as appellants do not argue
the limitations of the other dependent claims in this group apart from the limitations of claim 1.
Turning now to the rejection of claims 21-23 under 35 U.S.C. 103, we will not sustain this rejection.
Claims 21-23 are directed to specific dimensions for the first and second fields. These dimensions
are meant to make the printed information easier to read by the visually impaired. The applied
references do not disclose or suggest these dimensions but the examiner contends that they would have
been obvious since the use of viewing aids for the visually impaired was known and the use of an
oversized visual field “would make the card more functional and practical” [answer-page 9]. While we
are sympathetic to the examiner’s reasoning, we find no evidence before us that would have suggested
an oversized field in a credit card or telephone calling card environment. While such an oversized field
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