Appeal No. 1999-2784
Application No. 08/608,440
OPINION
We reverse.
It is our view that the examiner has not established a
prima facie case of obviousness of the claimed subject matter.
The examiner cites any one of the references to Trivedi,
Duffy and Raviv for a teaching of measuring brain activity but
admits that none of the references deal with “emotional
responses,” as required by the claims. The examiner’s
position, however, is that it is well known that the prior art
measurements are associated with “mental states” and that
“emotional responses” are nothing more than mental states.
Thus, concludes the examiner, no matter what label is affixed
to the mental states being depicted by the measured brain
waves of the prior art, the instant invention and the prior
art are measuring the same thing.
We agree with appellant that the cited references do not
suggest the claimed method for determining the extent of an
emotional response of a test subject.
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