Appeal No. 1999-0195
Application 08/507,424
control and drive means to coordinate the movements of the
chock bar and carriage to bring pin 100 into registry with one
of the holes in the opposite track, the apparent lack of any
need for such complexity, and the question of how such a
control and drive mean would be powered, would all act as
disincentives to one of ordinary skill in the art in
considering whether to automate the system of Blunden in light
of Cone’s teachings. In addition, it is not clear how one of
ordinary skill in the art would go about automating the system
of Blunden along the lines of Cone’s system. Finally, the
relatively infrequent engagement/disengagement cycle of the
Blunden device as compared to the Cone device makes the need
for the proposed automation of Blunden, at best, questionable.
The mere fact that the prior art could be modified does
not make such a modification obvious absent suggestion of the
desirability of doing so. See, for example, In re Gordon, 733
F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In the
present case, we fail to perceive any teaching, suggestion or
incentive in the applied references which would have led one
of ordinary skill in the art to modify the Blunden system in
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007