Appeal No. 97-3453 Page 8
Application No. 08/475,374
information by head 42.” (Id.) The examiner concludes that
it would have been obvious to combine Tin with Admission in
view of Ottesen “to compensate for the distance between the
recording and reproducing heads, as suggested by Tin on lines
16-17 of column 2.” (Id.)
Although the references omit “the -25 dB limitation,”
(id. at 6), which is recited in each of the claims, the
examiner notes that Ottesen teaches “that reference 28 may
vary depending on the changing environment.” (Id.) “Since
applicant has not disclosed that -25 dB is a critical range,”
opines the examiner, “selection of such a range in [sic, is]
considered merely optimization of a range and does not
patentably define over Ottesen ..., especially since no new
and unexpected results are submitted by applicant. See In re
Aller, 105 USPQ 233 (CCPA 1955).” (Id.)
The U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)
established the rule that the discovery of an optimum value of
a
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