Appeal No. 96-1920
Application 08/218,136
a vehicle operator [claim 1] or a means for evaluating driving
skill based on a comparison [claims 8 and 9]. As we noted
above, Furukawa does not disclose or suggest either of these
features
of the claimed invention. Nishikawa does not overcome this
deficiency in Furukawa. Therefore, we do not sustain the
examiner’s rejection of these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
We now consider the rejection of claim 1 under 35
U.S.C. § 102(e) as being anticipated by the disclosure of
Takahashi ’997. The examiner indicates how he reads claim 1
on the disclosure of Takahashi ’997 on pages 6-7 of the
answer. Appellant argues that Takahashi ’997 “does not
include or in any way suggest means for estimating a driving
skill of the vehicle operator according to an operation
executed by the operator” [brief, page 18]. The examiner
responds that Takahashi ’997 teaches a means for learning a
driver’s unique characteristics and a control output which
recalls the relationship between vehicle driving parameters
and the personal driving characteristics of the driver
[answer, page 15]. Appellant argues that Takahashi ’997 never
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