Appeal No. 2004-1254
Application No. 09/625,884
submits that “the circular display in the Rock-A-Way device
[i.e., the wheel depicting two girls on a teeter-totter]
corresponds to the video screen” (answer, page 7).
Ugawa discloses “an image display type game machine
includ[ing] an image display apparatus that can provide an image
display of a play field, a flipped ball moving around the play
field, and a variable display device that can cause the visual
representation of the display to change” (column 6, lines 8
through 13).
Equating Ugawa’s image display apparatus to a video screen,
the examiner submits that
[i]t would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art at the time of the invention to have used a
video screen [as in Ugawa] instead of a mechanical
display [as in Fey] in order to have fewer moving
parts, thus making the [Fey] gaming machine easier to
maintain [final rejection, page 3].
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of a
secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure
of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention
must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references.
Rather the test is what the combined teachings of the references
would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. In
re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
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