Appeal No. 96-2278
Application 08/175,001
data on the card.
Thus, the examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims
1 and 13 is based on pure speculation as to how one might
implement the comparison suggested by Axelrod. A rejection
cannot be made under 35 U.S.C. § 102 based upon speculation
with respect to the teachings of a reference or based on
assumptions of what an artisan might decide to do given the
disclosure of a reference. These considerations would be more
relevant to a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103, however, we do
not have a rejection on that ground before us using Axelrod.
Although Axelrod is the most pertinent reference on
this record, it does not anticipate the invention of
independent claims 1 and 13 for reasons discussed above, and
the obviousness issue has not been properly raised by the
examiner. We would have no difficulty agreeing with the
examiner that it would have been obvious to the artisan that
the image on card C in Axelrod and the image on display 32
should be placed adjacent to each other to facilitate
Axelrod’s disclosure that a human must compare these two
images. Humans are well aware that when comparing two images
to each other, they should be simultaneously viewable and
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