Appeal No. 2002-0001
Application No. 08/989,674
It is this quoted portion of representative claim 1 on
appeal that goes directly to the heart of appellants’
contribution in the art as best characterized by the Summary of
the Invention at specification pages 4 and 5. It is appellants’
notation system that is the apparent improvement over the “Object
Modeling Technique” in the prior art. Moreover, the binding and
displaying clauses of representative independent claim 1 on
appeal are specifically recited to be “based upon said notation”.
Again, the examiner has not provided evidence to us of the
anticipatory nature of Martin as to these features as well.
Equally misplaced is the examiner’s view expressed at the
bottom of page 17 of the answer that the above quoted feature of
attaching a notation is “taught by Martin with the common
knowledge of static objects and the teaching of attaching rules
to diagrams such as the Object-Relationship Diagram and Composed-
Of diagrams (page 146).” Our reviewing court has indicated
clearly that this common knowledge approach is highly disfavored
and the examiner must provide substantial evidence to prove the
assertion made. “[T]he Board cannot simply reach conclusions
based on its own understanding or experience - or on its
assessment of what would be basic knowledge or common sense.
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