Appeal No. 1997-2075 Page 10
Application No. 08/362,362
conclude that the examiner's determination of obviousness of
the claimed subject matter was correct.
As to the specific question of "teaching away," our
reviewing court in In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553, 31 USPQ2d
1130, 1331 (Fed. Cir. 1994) stated:
A reference may be said to teach away when a person of
ordinary skill, upon [examining] the reference, would be
discouraged from following the path set out in the
reference, or would be led in a direction divergent from
the path that was taken by the applicant.
We agree with the examiner's analysis set forth on pages 8-9
of the answer that the references do not teach away from each
other or from the claimed invention. In fact, as set forth
above, it is our view that the combined teachings of Vaccari
and Duley would have suggested the claimed invention.
For the reasons stated above, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
In accordance with 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7), claims 2 to 5 fall
with claim 1. Thus, it follows that the decision of the
examiner to reject claims 2 to 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is also
affirmed.
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