Appeal No. 2001-1850 Page 5
Application No. 08/675,893
at the base station (units at the transmitter side 21)," (id. at 3), he similarly concludes,
"[w]ith respect to the limitation of splitting at a location remote from a serving base
station, this feature is an obvious design choice since it has been judicially determined
that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to rearrange parts without changing
the functions of these parts (see MPEP 2144.04, section VI, part C, which cites In re
Japikse, 86 USPQ 70 (CCPA 1950), In re Kuhle, 188 USPQ 7 (CCPA 1975), and Ex
parte Chicago Rawhide Mfg. Co., 223 USPQ 351, 353 (Bd.Pat.App. & Inter. 1984)."
(Examiner's Answer at 6.)
The appellants argue, "[t]he Qualcomm publication does not teach or suggest
providing separate channel coding and interleaving as well as separate deinterleaving
and channel decoding for each of the lower-speed signals." (Appeal Br. at 10.) They
further argue, "there is no motivation or reason taught by U.S. '851 to move the
separating circuit 24 to a location remote from the base station. . . ." (Appeal Br. at 14.)
"The mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner suggested by the
Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the prior art suggested the
desirability of the modification." In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23 USPQ2d 1780,
1784 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (citing In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127
(Fed. Cir. 1984)). "[T]he factual inquiry whether to combine references must be
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