Appeal No. 1997-2690
Application No. 08/532,040
The examiner, on the other hand, asserts (Answer, page 4) that
"Sant'Anselmo discloses an asymmetrical code border which
indicates the orientation of the code pattern," and that "the
combination of Bloomberg and Sant'Anselmo would in fact
suggest to a skilled artisan a 'glyph' type code pattern with
an asymmetrical pattern."
We agree with the examiner that Sant'Anselmo teaches the
use of an asymmetrical pattern of glyphs for orienting the
code pattern. However, we do not agree that Sant'Anselmo
suggests the use of an asymmetrical digital code sequence, as
claimed. The distinction is subtle. Sant'Anselmo's
orientation pattern of border 16 and external orientation
cells 120 has a spatial or geometric configuration that is not
symmetric, as shown in Figures 11 and 12. The individual
cells in the orientation pattern, though, are all typically
"on" data cells (see column 2, lines 52-64). Thus, the
digital code sequence forming the orientation pattern is a
sequence of ones (1111...), for example, which is symmetric.
As neither Bloomberg nor Sant'Anselmo discusses or suggests
forming the orientation pattern of a digital code sequence
that is asymmetric, the combination of Bloomberg and
Sant'Anselmo fails to meet every limitation of the claim.
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