Appeal No. 1998-1655 Page 27
Application No. 08/367,766
they admit that it was known in the art to use an optical disk
drive with an optical disk for mass storage and high speed
retrieval of data. Specifically, the appellants admit, "it is
known to use ... an optical disc drive in which data such as
documents and images can be stored in a mass storage disc type
recording medium and retrieved at high speed." (Spec. at 1.)
Yamada, in turn, teaches a disk cleaning mechanism to
remove dust from a disk. Col. 1, ll. 7-17. Persons skilled
in the art would have known that cleaning a disk enhances the
storage of data to and retrieval of data from the disk. We
are persuaded that the reference's teaching of cleaning a disk
would have suggested the desirability, and thus the
obviousness, of combining Yamada's teaching of disk cleaning
with known optical disk drive technology. Therefore, we
affirm the rejection of claims 24 and 25 as obvious over
Yamada.
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