Appeal No. 1998-0417
Application No. 08/682,419
While the instant invention can begin at any vertex (many of the claims call for “selecting a starting
vertex”), this, alone, does not distinguish over Beauregard since the starting vertex selected may be the
bottom-most vertex, as in Beauregard. However, by starting always with the bottom vertex,
Beauregard fails to teach or suggest the claimed requirements of a determination made by a number of
direction changes less than or equal to two “if the starting vertex is disposed between two other
vertices” and equal to one “if the starting vertex is not disposed between two other vertices.” The
starting vertex in Beauregard is always the same one, i.e., the minimum value vertex. The reference
does not determine whether a polygon is a simple convex polygon by looking at different numbers of
direction changes, or thresholds, depending on the position, or disposition, of the starting vertex.
From the discussion at pages 13-14 of the answer, the examiner appears to be cognizant of this
deficiency in Beauregard but concludes the claimed subject matter would have been obvious
nevertheless “because Beauregard specifically teaches two direction changes and because
artisans...would not read Beauregard as being an absolute teaching but merely one possible method.”
The trouble with the examiner’s reasoning, as we view it, is that Beauregard does not suggest another
method and the examiner has pointed to nothing else which would have suggested the modification the
examiner seeks to impose on Beauregard.
The examiner’s “second reason,” set forth in the only full paragraph on page 14 of the answer,
sounds suspiciously like a hindsight approach to determining obviousness.
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