Ex parte RAHMAN - Page 7




          Appeal No. 2001-1480                                       Page 7           
          Application No. 09/129,285                                                  


          traffic control devices such as speed limit or traffic signs,               
          traffic signals or traffic metering lights to regulate                      
          traffic.                                                                    
               Anticipation is established only when a single prior art               
          reference discloses, expressly or under the principles of                   
          inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention.  RCA              
          Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444,              
          221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984).  In other words, there                  
          must be no difference between the claimed invention and the                 
          reference disclosure, as viewed by a person of ordinary skill               
          in the field of the invention.  Scripps Clinic & Research                   
          Found. v. Genentech Inc., 927 F.2d 1565, 1576, 18 USPQ2d 1001,              
          1010 (Fed. Cir. 1991).        In that Ayanoglu lacks a teaching             
          of transmitting traffic control signals to traffic control                  
          devices as recited in claim 1, the examiner’s rejection of                  
          claim 1, as well as claims 3 and 5-7 which depend from claim                
          1, as being anticipated by Ayanoglu must fail.1                             
                              The obviousness rejection                               


               1See Kloster Speedsteel AB v. Crucible Inc., 793 F.2d 1565, 1571, 230  
          USPQ 81, 84 (Fed. Cir. 1986) ("absence from the reference of any claimed    
          element negates anticipation").                                             







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