Appeal No. 96-2997
Application 08/179,458
To modify Poulett to achieve appellant’s claimed invention involves the application of knowledge and
motivation not clearly present in the prior art. See In re Sheckler, 438 F.2d 999, 1001, 168 USPQ
716, 717 (CCPA 1971). We conclude that there would have been no motivation to modify Poulett to
achieve the subject matter of claims 6 and 13 on appeal.
In response to appellant’s traversal of the examiner’s statement that video effects such as
acceleration and deceleration were well-known in the art (appellant’s amendment of April 17, 1995,
page 10; Brief, page 8), the examiner relied (Final Rejection, page 14; Answer, pages 9 to 10) on
Cohen et al. (columns 13 and 44 to 47) to show that such a feature would have been well-known at the
time of appellant’s invention. Our close review of the Cohen et al. reference reveals that Cohen et al.
fail to disclose acceleration and deceleration in the replication of frames in a video segment. Instead,
we agree with appellant (Brief, page 8), and find that Cohen et al. (see column 1, lines 15 to 20) are
concerned with switching from a first segment of frames to a second segment of frames (e.g., wiping,
fading, or cutting between video segments). Cohen et al. do not appear to be related to skewed time
dilation or replication of frames to make slow motion effects.
disclosure, and not only knowledge and motivation which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the
claimed invention was made, such a reconstruction is improper and is said to employ hindsight. See In re
McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 1395, 170 USPQ 209, 212 (CCPA 1971).
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007