Appeal No. 97-3400
Application 08/584,908
a photographic album page comprising multiple pockets for
retaining pictures thereon” and that “Lowenstein teaches
providing a carrier 10 with retaining strips forming a pocket for
holding a removable transparent strip” (answer, page 4).
Based on these findings, the examiner has made the following
conclusions of obviousness:
It would have been obvious . . . to store film in
a desired location on a conventional picture storing
album sheet in an arrangement with the photographs. To
have provided the film in any desired location with
respect to the photographs . . . would further have
been obvious, for a purpose such as to facilitate
identification of the desired negatives for further
processing. No patentable or unobvious distinction is
seen between associating negatives with a plurality of
individual prints or with a contact sheet made from
those negatives. These are old and conventional
practices in the art of storing photographic negatives.
[Answer, page 4.]
We agree with appellant, however, that the examiner’s taking
of Official Notice that it is conventional to insert pictures or
negatives into transparent album pockets, in combination with the
teachings of Holson and Lowenstein, would not have suggested to
the ordinarily skilled artisan the claim requirement of providing
picture bearing index print sheet having a non-picture area in
the same relative location on the index print sheet as a non-
image area on the film sheet. In particular, Lowenstein, which
we view as the more pertinent of the applied references, is not
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