Appeal No. 1998-0728
Application 08/468,231
stripe 32b) to compensate for a change in height of the
vehicle due to loading. It does not appear that the robot
shown in Evans has the problem of loading. "The mere fact
that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by
the Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the
prior art suggested the desirability of the modification."
In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84
(Fed. Cir. 1992), citing In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902,
221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984). No evidence has been
cited to support the Examiner's reasoning. It appears to us
that the Examiner has impermissibly used Appellants'
disclosure to provide the motivation for the modification.
Even if Evans did suggest correcting for the height change due
to load, there is no suggestion that it should be accomplished
in the way recited in claim 1; e.g., the reference data could
be completely remeasured instead of detecting displacements at
several predetermined points and using this height correction
data to obtain the reference data, as claimed. The references
to Caimi, Kurami, and Aoyama do not cure the deficiency of
Evans. Accordingly, we conclude that the Examiner has failed
- 8 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007