Appeal No. 1999-0479
Application No. 08/417,613
Ando 5,008,946 Apr.
16, 1991
Hasegawa et al. (Hasegawa) 5,091,856 Feb. 25,
1992
Tamada et al. (Tamada) 5,124,920 Jun. 23,
1992
Claims 2 through 10 and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Ando in view of Tamada,
Ishikawa and Hasegawa.
Reference is made to the Final rejection, the Brief and
the Answer for the respective positions of the appellant and
the examiner.
OPINION
The obviousness rejection of claims 2 through 10 and 12
is reversed.
In Ando, the vehicle driver uses eye and mouth movements
to control vehicle components such as the radio, the air
conditioner, and cruise control (Figure 1a). A CCD camera 3
(Figure 1b) observes the eye and mouth movements of the driver
of the vehicle, and the images therefrom are compared to a
reference stored in memory (column 5, lines 15 through 59;
column 6, lines 26 through 61). Appellant argues that Ando is
not concerned with enabling or disabling the starting of the
5
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