Appeal No. 1998-2379
Application No. 08/315,942
disclosure of the present application, the recited ‘means
for generating and radiating . . . ’ and the ‘means for
receiving . . . ’ are to be construed as covering,
respectively, conventional EAS system transmitting and
receiving equipment, and equivalents” (brief, page 12).
It is clear from the record that the examiner’s
application of the prior art was not commensurate with
the metes and bounds of the claims on appeal. For
example, one of ordinary skill in the art would not
construe the radar system disclosed in Martin as a system
that would function in an electronic article surveillance
system such as the one claimed by the appellants.
Finally, appellants argue that there is no
motivation to combine the references cited by the
examiner (brief, pages 4 and 14 to 16). We agree. To
establish a prima facie case of obviousness, three basic
criteria must be met: first, there must be some
suggestion or motivation, either in the references
themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one
of ordinary skill in the art, to modify the reference or
to combine reference teachings. Second, there must be a
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