Appeal No. 1998-1114
Application 08/353,254
("the PTO usually must evaluate both the scope and content of
the prior art and the level of ordinary skill solely on the
cold words of the literature"); In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573,
1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (the Board did not
err in adopting the approach that the level of skill in the
art was best determined by the references of record).
The Examiner finds that "[c]omparators, R-S flip-flops,
and tri-state buffers are common components" (EA11) and that
"even one with a low degree of skill in electronics design
would know how to use a comparator to compare an input with a
key, then send the results of the comparison to a R-S
flip-flop to store the state of the last performed comparison,
and then to use the state stored within the flip-flop to
operate a device with multiple modes, such as a tri-state
buffer" (EA11).
The issue is whether it would have been obvious to one of
ordinary skill in the art to arrange the elements as claimed
without the benefit of Appellant's disclosure, not whether one
skilled in the art would have known how to do what is claimed
once told how to do it. Thus, the Examiner's finding is not
helpful to the obviousness analysis because it fails to state
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