Appeal No. 1998-0889
Application 08/006,585
ordinary skill in the art that there must be some structure for
holding down the material to be printed on in a printing position in
the plotter of Otsuka to keep the material from moving around. No
means-plus-function interpretation has been advanced as to the "means
for holding," so any structure satisfies this function. Thus, we
generally agree with the Examiner's finding that "it was known in the
art that . . . means for holding the plastic card is a crucial
component to prevent movement of the plastic card while information
is being printed" (EA4), although we would use the term "substrate"
instead of the more specific "plastic card." Lastly, although we
agree with the Examiner's finding that "it was known in the art that
the use of smudge resistant [ink] is [sic, was] widely use[d] to
prevent smudging when writing information on a substrate" (EA4), the
reason why one of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have
been motivated to use "smudge resistant ink" is because smudge
resistance is a desirable property for ink on cards that will be
handled frequently. Thus, properly argued, the Examiner did not
really need to resort to Official Notice.
This analysis does not address all of the claim limitations.
With respect to claim 1, the rejection does not address the
limitations that "the customized pre-manufactured card have a unique
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