Appeal No. 1999-2068
Application 08/650,038
not moving, whereas the Examiner's reasons for the combination
of the references requires that the vehicle be in motion.
In addition, Appellants assert that one skilled in the
art would not be motivated to place a touch screen device
forward of a steering wheel and on an instrument panel of the
vehicle, as the driver's access to the screen would be
hindered by the steering wheel, and the resulting system would
be awkward and most likely unsafe to utilize.
In the answer the Examiner admits that Yano does not7
disclose a display located forward of the steering wheel, a
plurality of switches located on the steering wheel for
selectively activating a feature group on the display, and
means located on the steering wheel for activating a feature
from the activated feature group on the display and for
adjusting a value of the activated feature. All of these
limitation are required by the pending claims. However, the
Examiner asserts that it would have been obvious to a person
of ordinary skill in this art at the time the invention was
made to have the switching means, as taught by Fujisawa, in
7Answer, page 4.
8
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