Appeal No. 1999-1789
Application No. 08/920,652
equivalency must be recognized in the prior art, and
cannot be based on appellants’ disclosure
or the mere fact that the components at issue are
functional or mechanical equivalents. In re Ruff, 256
F.2d 590, 599, 118 USPQ 340, 348 (CCPA 1958).
We further agree with Appellants that no suggestion
exists in Levinson for making the modification suggested
by the Examiner. Appellants have attacked the remote
control doorbell problem by replacing the existing
doorbell push button switch with a series connected
switch pair mounted at the original push button switch
location as claimed. Levinson, on the other hand,
actuates a remote doorbell chime by adding a transmitter
connected in parallel across an existing doorbell chime.
In our view, Levinson’s solution to the problem of
effectively providing a remote control doorbell feature
is so opposite in approach to that of Appellants that any
suggestion to modify Levinson to arrive at Appellants’
claimed series connected switch pair could only come from
Appellants’ own disclosure and not from any teaching in
the Levinson reference.
In our view, we are left to speculate why one of
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