Appeal No. 1999-1341
Application No. 08/542,323
spacing between LEDs (because this increases resolution of the printer), it would be
contrary to general knowledge to desire to increase the spacing of the LEDs. Yet, the
examiner’s rationale for combining the references is to enable “a greater amount of light
beams of a [sic] greater spaced apart light emitting elements to reach the center of the
single lens” (principal answer-page 5). There is certainly no teaching in either of the
applied references of a desire to enable a greater amount of light beams of “greater
spaced apart light emitting elements to reach the center” of a single lens.
There is no suggestion, in either Taniguchi or Kessler, that there was any need for
improvement in Taniguchi by increasing luminous flux by having the LEDs emit a majority
of light towards the corresponding lens “in varying directions.” If there is no suggestion by
the applied prior art that there was any problem with Taniguchi’s apparatus, what would
have led the artisan to aim the LEDs towards the centers of the lenses by having the light
from the LEDs emitted “in varying directions,” as claimed? Clearly, Kessler’s teaching of
combining a plurality of angularly separated output laser light beams and relaying the
beams at a stop plane to a light sensitive print medium to form a spot for each laser light
beam would not have led the artisan to modify Taniguchi to arrive at the instant claimed
subject matter.
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