Appeal No. 1999-0091
Application No. 08/762,052
calling and allow the user to avoid answering other calls. In
any event, Oprea's suggestion to use a distinctive ring to
announce a particular source is sufficient motivation to
establish a prima facie case of obviousness. Accordingly, we
will affirm the rejection of claim 1 and the claims grouped
therewith, claims 2 through 5, and 8 through 12.
As to representative claim 16 for the second group of
claims, appellant (Brief, page 8) is correct that Ross initiates
the calls to the riders from the vehicle, rather than from a base
station. The examiner recognizes this difference and explains
(Answer, page 5) that Ross uses a remote base station for
monitoring the vehicle's progress and for storing information
such as users' telephone numbers. Also, Ross employs the system
for notifying passengers for an airplane. The examiner contends
that the skilled artisan would have realized that the number of
passengers could be a large number of people and that in view of
Ross's disclosure, it would have been obvious to the skilled
artisan to use the base station to initiate the calls to more
easily reach the large number of users.
We agree with appellant (Reply Brief, page 4) that the
examiner has engaged in hindsight reconstruction. Although the
base station of Ross has all of the information and facilities to
make the calls to the users/passengers, there is no teaching or
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