Appeal No. 2006-0743 10
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,690
Gager discloses that the automatic trunk lid release is operable for a certain period of
time, such as while the vehicle is turned off to prevent the trunk from releasing while the vehicle
is in motion. See col. 3, lines 18-39; see also col. 4, lines 23-33. Gager also discloses that the
presence detector may cause the headlights of the vehicle to be illuminated or to flash on and off
when the presence of a person is detected. Gager indicates that this function may be time-
limited. See col. 3, lines 40-49. Finally, Gager discloses that the headlights of the vehicle may
be activated to attract others to the vehicle. Again, Gager indicates that this function may be
time-limited to conserve battery power. See col. 3, lines 50-53.
Based on these teachings in Gager, one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized
the advantages of operating a presence detector system for a certain period of time using a timer.
Therefore, the teachings in Gager render claim 8 obvious.
For the reasons set forth above, the rejection of claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Gager, Federspiel and Marrazzo is affirmed.
B. Rejection of claims 9, 21 and 24
Claim 9 reads as follows:
9. The detection system of claim 1 wherein said illuminated touch
sensitive pad comprises an illuminated capacitance sensing pad.
The examiner explains the rejection as follows (Answer at 11):
Although the system of Gager et al. in view of Federspiel and Marrazzo et al.
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007