Appeal No. 2001-2612 Page 8
Application No. 09/479,741
Independent claim 13 is directed to a method for teaching individuals their
emotions, which includes in its first step providing a multiplicity of different sets of plural
faces having the same limitations contained in claims 1 and 3, and recites the further
steps of selecting at least a pair of faces from different ones of the sets, displaying the
faces the pair on each of a succession of substrates, and changing the faces so as to
switch emphasis between the faces.
The only comment made by the examiner in the statement of the rejection of
claim 13 is that it would have been obvious to provide a succession of substrates
because this is “a mere duplication of the essential working parts of a device [which]
involves only routine skill in the art” (Paper No. 5, page 4). The examiner has not
pointed out where in Frank the method recited in claim 13 is taught and, left to our own
devices, we have not found the reference to render them obvious. Thus, the evidence
adduced by the examiner fails to establish a prima facie case of obviousness with
regard to the method recited in independent claim 13, and therefore the Section 103
rejection of claims 13-20 and 22 cannot be sustained. Moreover, claims 18-20 and 22
contain limitations directed to the relative sizes of the facial expressions and, as we
explained above with regard to claims 7 and 9-12, the lack of such a teaching in Frank
provides an additional reason for not sustaining the rejection of claims 18-20 and 22.
CONCLUSION
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