Appeal No. 2000-1250
Application No. 08/662,077 Page 10
advanced by the examiner. Instead, it appears that the examiner
relied on hindsight in reaching the obviousness determination.
Our reviewing court has said, "To imbue one of ordinary skill in
the art with knowledge of the invention in suit, when no prior
art reference or references of record convey or suggest that
knowledge, is to fall victim to the insidious effect of a
hindsight syndrome wherein that which only the inventor taught is
used against its teacher." W. L. Gore & Assoc. v. Garlock, Inc.,
721 F.2d 1540, 1553, 220 USPQ 303, 312-13 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984). It is essential that "the decision
maker forget what he or she has been taught . . . about the
claimed invention and cast the mind back to the time the
invention was made . . . to occupy the mind of one skilled in the
art who is presented only with the references, and who is
normally guided by the then-accepted wisdom in the art." Id.
In addition, with respect to appellants’ assertion (brief,
pages 7 and 8) that the references, even if combined, do not
suggest the claimed invention, we find that because neither
Ramstrom nor Astmann discloses providing a generic message
interpreter of each different switch to interpret generic and
native messages and interpreting generic messages to control the
first switch with native switch messages, we agree with
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