Appeal No. 95-4256
Application 08/127,519
off state and a turned-off state) and 4) automatically turning on the set when the compared data
are the same. At pages 5 and 6 of the answer, the examiner in effect acknowledges that Testin
also fails to disclose the subject matter of items 1-4, above. Even assuming the examiner had
satisfied the burden of establishing that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it
obvious to combine the teachings of Hakamada and Testin, it has not been established that the
modifications of the combined prior art suggested by the examiner would have been obvious. In
re Fritch, supra. There is no evidence in support of any of the examiner’s suggested
modifications. Furthermore, with respect to the first acknowledged deficiency of the prior art
(item 1, above), the position of the examiner to modify Testin by not simply blanking the screen,
but by shutting down Testin’s entire system to prevent permanent and costly damage from large
voltage peaks is not well taken. Testin teaches blanking the picture screen and muting the audio
output against undesired noise responses. There is no teaching in Testin, or any other
evidence, that large voltage peaks occur in Testin’s system during tuning of the television
receiver which might suggest shutting the receiver off when changing channels. Thus, there is no
teaching in Testin which would suggest turning off Hakamada’s set due to noise.
There being no teaching in the prior art of turning off a receiver due to noise, it
would not have been obvious to determine if a set is turned off due to noise (item 2) or to
automatically turn on the set (item 4).
With respect to the comparing step acknowledged as not taught in the prior art
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