Appeal No. 1998-0146
Application 08/407,058
Sugano would be more complex and expensive is not a
technical reason indicating nonobviousness. See Orthopedic
Equipment Co. v. United States, 702 F.2d 1005, 1013, 217
USPQ 193, 200 (Fed. Cir. 1983) ("[T]he fact that the two
disclosed apparatus would not be combined by businessmen for
economic reasons is not the same as saying that it could not
be done because skilled persons in the art felt that there
was some technological incompatibility that prevented their
combination. Only the latter fact is telling on the issue
of nonobviousness."); In re Farrenkopf, 713 F.2d 714, 718,
219 USPQ 1, 4 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Yamamoto discloses that a
cleaning motion can be controlled by a control circuit. One
of ordinary skill in the art would have known that the
motion of Sugano could be controlled by a control circuit
both from Sugano and from Yamamoto. In combining the
teachings of Yamamoto and Sugano, it would have been
apparent to one of ordinary skill to use software control
for both operations.
Appellants argue that one of ordinary skill in the art
would not have been led to modify Yamamoto to include a
cleaning control means that rotates the cleaning disk while
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