Appeal No. 1999-0709 Page 5
Application No. 08/400,335
teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention, absent some teaching or suggestion
supporting the combination." ACS Hosp. Sys., Inc. v. Montefiore Hosp., 732 F.2d 1572,
1577, 221 USPQ 929, 933 (Fed. Cir. 1984). To this end, the requisite motivation must stem
from some teaching, suggestion or inference in the prior art as a whole or from the knowledge
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art and not from the appellants' disclosure.
See, e.g., Uniroyal, Inc. v. Rudkin-Wiley Corp., 837 F.2d 1044, 1052, 5 USPQ2d 1434,
1439 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 825 (1988).
While we appreciate that Miller discloses a postage meter comprising a rotatable print
drum 126 for imprinting postage on an envelope 16 through rotation thereof and that Hubbard
and Miller teach that linearly moving and rotary print heads are both well known print systems
for use in postage meters, it is not apparent to us why one of ordinary skill in the art would
have been led by the combined teachings of these references to make the modification proposed
by the examiner. Specifically, the mounting of the depressible cover member 38 relative to the
print system support 32, the "inking complete" switch 98, the release lever 44, the solenoid 42
and the detent block 28 of Hubbard are particularly designed to cooperate in the context of a
linearly actuated and linearly moving printing face. Thus, we are at a loss to understand why
or, for that matter, how, one of ordinary skill in the art would have replaced the linearly
moving arrangement of Hubbard with a rotary arrangement of the type taught by Miller while
still maintaining all of the necessary cooperation between the above-noted elements of Hubbard.
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