Appeal No. 1999-2572
Application 08/419,678
facie case of obviousness for the recitation in claim 1 that
“each of the nozzle rows being spaced apart from an adjacent
nozzle row by a distance which is at least twice a printing
width.”
We also agree with appellants that the examiner has
not properly explained the motivation for combining the
teachings of Chan and Zandian. The examiner’s original
motivation was based on the alleged fact that Chan was cited
within Zandian. Appellants noted that Zandian referred to a
different Chan patent and that the Chan patent relied on by
the examiner has a different nozzle format than Zandian.
Appellants argue that because of these different nozzle
formats, one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been
motivated to modify the nozzle format of Zandian with the
teachings of the Chan patent used by the examiner. The
examiner has not responded to this persuasive argument by
appellants.
For the reasons discussed above, we do not sustain the
examiner’s rejection of claims 1-7 based on the collective
teachings of Kohei, Zandian and Chan. Since the additional
references of Rhoads and Hirano do not overcome the
-8-
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