Appeal No. 97-0048
Application No. 08/292,186
prompting signals for prompting a user as to the appropriate time
for taking a dose of medicine. Even if we assume, arguendo, that
it would have been obvious to substitute an audible speech signal
for the audio or visual prompting signal of Schollmeyer, in view
of Moore, we are still left with the unanswered question as to
why it would have been obvious to cause that speech signal to
identify the contents of the medicine container rather than
merely prompt a user as disclosed by Schollmeyer. And, even if
we were to answer this inquiry by contending that Moore’s
disclosure of an “audible description” of each particular
medicine dose would have been suggestive of identifying
medication within a container with audible speech, the instant
claims require that there be some “interface,” or “operative
association” between the playback unit and the medication
container or that they somehow be placed together in order for
the loudspeaker to produce speech sounds which identify the
contents of the medicine container. We find no such claimed
interconnection of elements disclosed or suggested by any
combination of the applied references.
At best, the examiner has apparently found various
references disclosing or suggesting various features of the
claimed subject matter (e.g., Schollmeyer discloses a programming
unit at a pharmacy station, Moore suggests an audible speech
description of a particular medicine dose, Damark suggests remote
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