Appeal No. 1998-0871
Application No. 08/406,301
specification, and limitation appearing in the specification are not to be read into the claims. In re Etter,
756 F.2d 852, 858, 225 USPQ 1, 5 (Fed. Cir. 1985).
Claim 7 is similar to claim 1, additionally requiring projection control means for controlling and
processing of the image “in response to a user’s selection of projection direction”4
and “a mirror part for reflecting images processed under the control of the projection control means
onto a screen in a projection direction selected in response to a user’s projection direction selection.”
We find no suggestion in Lim or in any of the other applied references, singly or in
combination, to suggest that the user can select the direction of projection of the images onto a
screen. Lim discloses only a single direction of projecting an image. The examiner’s unsupported
statement or speculation that mirrors are often used for reflecting lights in a projector in order to change
the optical path of the light and if compaction is the goal of design, it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to include such mirrors into Lim to perform the
well-known functions recited in claim 7 is insufficient to meet the examiner’s burden of producing a
factual basis for the rejection.
We are not inclined to dispense with proof by evidence when the proposition at issue is not
supported by a teaching in a prior art reference or shown to be common knowledge of unquestionable
We note that the phrase “of the projection part” in claim 7 lacks antecedent basis. However, the scope of4
claim 7 is understandable under 35 U.S.C. § 112 (2). We construe the language of the claim to mean that the
projection control means controls the processing and projecting of the image by the projector means in response to
a user’s selection of a projection direction.
(12)
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