Appeal No. 2006-2414
Application No. 10/668,514
inoperability to the user. Because the criticality of redundancy is taught in this
reference for the airbag-system taught in Sterler, the teaching value of this
reference would have been obvious to have been employed by the artisan in the
system of Sasaki as urged by the examiner for additional safety reasons of the
operator of the vehicle of Sasaki as well as to minimize damage to the entire drive
train in the right of figure 1 of Sasaki including the engine and transmission.
Moreover, column 3, lines 57 through 59 of Sterler indicate that lamp 30 in the
various figures may comprise a safety lamp that switches to an alternate bulb or
unit in the event that the lamp itself fails.
We are not persuaded of the patentability of the claims set forth in this
rejection based upon the reasoning provided at pages 4 and 5 of the principal brief.
The apparent focus of the arguments is that references to Sterler and Sasaki don’t
use a common single power circuit or a common power arrangement. This line of
reasoning does not have any pertinence to the subject matter of independent claims
1 and 15 within this rejection. Moreover, the appellants appear to be arguing a
structural combinability line of reasoning which is unpersuasive of patentability.
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