Appeal No. 1997-1486
Application 08/430,752
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Ikushima in view of Grendahl
and/or Higashimura alone or further in view of Legras.
We refer to the Brief and to the Answer for a complete
exposition of the opposing viewpoints expressed by the
appellants and the examiner concerning the above noted
rejections.
For a number of reasons, none of these rejections can be
sustained.
In the first place, we agree with the appellants for the
reasons expressed in the Brief that a reference which is
directed to a contact lens such as the here applied Ikushima
reference constitutes nonanalogous art pursuant to the test as
set forth in, for example, In re Wood, 599 F.2d 1032, 1036,
202 USPQ 171, 174 (CCPA 1979). It is axiomatic that one with
an ordinary level of skill in a particular art would not even
be aware of a reference which is from a nonanalogous art.
Necessarily, therefore, it would not have been obvious for the
artisan to modify such a reference as the examiner proposes to
do to the nonanalogous Ikushima reference in the rejections
before us.
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