Appeal No. 2000-1690
Application No. 08/697,808
generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art that
would have led that individual to combine the relevant teachings
of the references to arrive at the claimed invention. See In re
Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 1074, 5 USPQ2d 1596, 1598 (Fed. Cir. 1988).
Furthermore, the Examiner must produce factual basis
supported by teaching in a prior art reference or shown to be
common knowledge of unquestionable demonstration, consistent with
the holding in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966). Our
reviewing court requires this evidence in order to establish a
prima facie case. In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468, 1471-72, 223
USPQ 785, 787-88 (Fed. Cir. 1984); In re Cofer, 354 F.2d 664,
668, 148 USPQ 268, 271-72 (CCPA 1966).
A review of Ng reveals that the reference relates to an
interactive group discussion system by which students may share
their views through either a shared screen or an audio channel.
Ng further describes the floor control (page 272, left-hand
column) as:
In the group discussion session, the tutor will be the one
manipulating the file most of the time while the students
can feed in their comments in another window; also it is
often undesirable to allow the student to edit the file
simultaneously. Hence, a floor control mechanism is used so
that only the person who has the floor can modify the shared
data. [Emphasis added.]
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