Appeal No. 96-1014
Application 08/032,530
OPINION
Grouping of claims
The examiner's statement (EA2) that appellant has not
presented arguments in support of the independent
patentability of identified groups of claims is in error.
Appellant has argued the separate patentability of claims
23, 26-30, 33-35, 39, 43, and 44.
Obviousness
We find the references to be representative of the
level of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Oelrich,
579 F.2d 86, 91, 198 USPQ 210, 214 (CCPA 1978) ("the PTO
usually must evaluate both the scope and content of the
prior art and the level of ordinary skill solely on the cold
words of the literature"); In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573,
1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (the Board did
not err in adopting the approach that the level of skill in
the art was best determined by the references of record).
Obviousness is determined through the eyes of one of
ordinary skill in the art and one of ordinary skill in the
art must be presumed to know something about the art apart
from what the references expressly disclose. See
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