Appeal No. 2000-1476
Application 08/801,918
In proposing to combine Skantar and Yoshino to reject the
appealed claims, the examiner concludes that it would have
been obvious “to have displayed the desired braking [and] the
actual braking on the display of Skantar et al. in view of the
teaching of Yoshino” (final rejection, page 3). Even though
both of these references pertain to braking systems, however,
the differences between the two are many and varied. The
display of desired braking characteristics disclosed by
Yoshino is specifically associated with a brake characteristic
adjustment apparatus that has no apparent relevance to the
railway brake system disclosed by Skantar. Even if it is
assumed for the sake of argument that Yoshino is analogous art
(the appellants contend that it is not), the only suggestion
for combining the two references in the manner proposed by the
examiner so as to meet the instant display limitations in
claims 1, 16 and 22 stems from an impermissible hindsight
reconstruction of the appellants’ invention wherein the claims
have been used as a blueprint to selectively piece together
disparate disclosures in the prior art. Furthermore, Yoshino
does nothing to cure the above noted deficiencies of Skantar
with respect to the limitations in claims 1 and 16 relating to
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