Appeal No. 1998-0146
Application 08/407,058
applied these teachings to Yamamoto, as set forth in the art
rejections, supra" (EA8; paraphrased at SEA2)).
We generally agree with the Examiner's reasoning, which
relies on what Sugano would have taught one of ordinary
skill in the art, rather than on made-up reasons about the
length of the brush strands. Claim 1 requires the cleaning
motions to be done by a "cleaning control means." Sugano
taught one of ordinary skill in the art that cleaning may be
done by moving the lens toward and away from the cleaning
disk. Sugano states that the cleaning operation is
performed without any special operations or processing
(translation, p. 24), which implies that this method is an
improvement over a control circuit. Sugano does not state
that a control circuit will not work and, so, does not teach
away. See In re Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553, 31 USPQ2d 1130,
1131 (Fed. Cir. 1994) ("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.").
That using software control to provide axial movement in
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