Appeal No. 1999-2450 Page 5
Application No. 08/812,222
represent the level of ordinary skill in the art. See In re
GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1579,
35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995)(finding that the Board
of Patent Appeals and Interference did not err in concluding
that the level of ordinary skill was best determined by the
references of record); In re Oelrich, 579 F.2d 86, 91, 198
USPQ 210, 214 (CCPA 1978) ("[T]he PTO usually must evaluate
... the level of ordinary skill solely on the cold words of
the literature."). Of course, “‘[e]very patent application
and reference relies to some extent upon knowledge of persons
skilled in the art to complement that [which is] disclosed
....’” In re Bode, 550 F.2d 656, 660, 193 USPQ 12, 16 (CCPA
1977) (quoting In re Wiggins, 488 F.2d 538, 543, 179 USPQ 421,
424 (CCPA 1973)). Those persons “must be presumed to know
something” about the art “apart from what the references
disclose.” In re Jacoby, 309 F.2d 513, 516, 135 USPQ 317, 319
(CCPA 1962). With these principles in mind, we consider the
following rejections:
• Rejection over Tanamachi
• Rejection over Buzak in view of Kitajima.
We begin with the former rejection.
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