Appeal No. 1998-2479
Application 08/419,512
recited and then stored in the ROM 93 itself. The rule that anticipation requires that
every element of a claim appears in a single reference accommodates situations where
the common knowledge of “technologists” is not recorded in a reference, i.e., where
technical facts are known to those in the field of the invention. Continental Can Co. v.
Monsanto Co., 948 F.2d 1264, 1269, 20 USPQ2d 1746, 1749-50 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
Similarly, In re Graves, 69 F.3d 1147, 1152, 36 USPQ2d 1697, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 1995),
confirms the longstanding interpretation that the teachings of a reference may be taken
in combination with knowledge of the skilled artisan to put the artisan in possession of
the claimed invention within 35 U.S.C. § 102 even though the patent does not
specifically disclose certain features. We add to this discussion the background of the
invention assessment that in the prior art to Minami the offset values utilized were
determined manually and apparently individually according to the discussion in the
paragraph bridging columns 1 and 2.
Appellants' view expressed at the bottom of page 15, for example, of the brief
that the offset data in ROM 93 of Minami is not the compensatory data of the present
invention is misplaced. We disagree with this assessment because appellants' own
discussion beginning at specification page 12, and particularly the discussion at the top
of page 15 and the entire page 16 indicates that offset data is determined and placed
into appellants' memory 25 such as in Figure 4 of the disclosed invention. That
Minami's offset data corresponds to maximum peak values of the track error signal is
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