Appeal No. 2002-2327
Application No. 09/142,549
disclosure of embedding supplemental data, such as watermark
data, in the video signal. Similarly, we agree with Appellants
that the Girod reference, while disclosing the insertion of
watermark data in the bit stream of a video signal, has no
teaching or suggestion of doing so by altering the pattern
sequence of a particular series of coded picture types.
We note that the Examiner asserts (Answer, page 6) that
“ . . . modifying the sequence to represent the BPP as the
supplemental value can be achieved easily by any skilled
artisan.” We find this assertion of the Examiner to be misplaced
with respect to the issue of obviousness of the claimed
invention. Simply because one of ordinary skill may be able to
alter a pattern sequence of a video signal so as to embed
supplemental data in the video signal does not address the
question of whether it would be obvious to do so. The mere fact
that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by the
Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the prior
art suggested the desirability of the modification. In re
Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266 n.14, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 n.14
(Fed. Cir. 1992). In our view, given the disparity of problems
addressed by the applied prior art references, and the differing
solutions proposed by them, any attempt to combine them in the
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