Appeal No. 1998-0631
Application 07/957,990
There is a predetermined threshold 37 in the "Human
Factor" publication. However, the "Human Factor" apparatus
works by comparing the incremental change between the
current key force and the last key force to a threshold or
the change from the average value to a threshold, rather
than comparing each key force against an absolute threshold.
The Examiner fails to address this difference in the
obviousness reasoning. Nevertheless, we consider that it
would have been trivially obvious to one of ordinary skill
in the art to compare the current key force directly against
a threshold instead of comparing the key force to the last
key force or to the average key force in order to simplify
the measurement. Although no numerical threshold values are
taught in the "Human Factor" publication, one of ordinary
skill in the art, knowing that a threshold value should be
selected, is presumed to have had sufficient skill to
determine a specific value by routine experimentation. See
In re Boesch, 617 F.2d 272, 276, 205 USPQ 215, 219 (CCPA
1980) ("[D]iscovery of an optimum value of a result
effective variable in a known process is ordinarily within
the skill of the art."); In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454, 456,
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