Appeal 2007-1127
Application 09/800,112
would have done what Appellants did. United States v. Adams, 383 U.S. 39
(1966); In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 987-988, 78 USPQ2d 1329, 1336 (Fed.
Cir. 2006); DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v. C.H.
Patrick, Co., 464 F.3d 1356, 1360-1361, 80 USPQ2d 1641, 1645 (Fed. Cir.
2006).
Nonfunctional descriptive material cannot render nonobvious an
invention that would have otherwise been obvious. In re Ngai, 367 F.3d
1336, 1339, 70 USPQ2d 1862, 1864 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Cf. In re Gulack, 703
F.2d 1381, 1385, 217 USPQ 401, 404 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (when descriptive
material is not functionally related to the substrate, the descriptive material
will not distinguish the invention from the prior art in terms of patentability).
§ 103 ANALYSIS
Appellants correctly point out the Examiner premised the rejection on
incorporation of a “well-known” networking Protocol field into Thornton’s
IP message encapsulating. However, as we note in our Findings of Fact,
Thornton explicitly describes using a “protocol ID”. Thus, the Examiner’s
introduction of the “well-known” networking feature is redundant to the
teachings of Thornton.
Therefore, the sole issue before us is whether Appellants’ claimed
“Protocol Type” distinguishes over the prior art protocol field or protocol ID
based on the claimed functionality of “denoting whether the message is an
IP message or an encapsulated non-IP message”. As we have already found
Thornton describes plural protocols and a protocol ID, in the packet, which
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