Appeal No. 2001-2198
Application 09/378,802
Indeed, they have been sanctioned by the Board as well. But
reliance on per se rules of obviousness is legally incorrect and
must cease. Any such administrative convenience is simply
inconsistent with section 103, which, according to Graham v. John
Deere, Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18, 148 USPQ 456, 466 (1966) and its
progeny, entitles an applicant to issuance of an otherwise proper
patent unless the PTO establishes that the invention as claimed
in the application is obvious over cited prior art, based on the
specific comparison of that prior art with claim limitations.
In re Ochiai, 71 F.3d 1565, 1572, 37 USPQ2d 1127, 1133 (Fed. Cir.
1995).
In the answer, the examiner states that the printhead has to
first move the printhead into the home position over the service
area and that this movement satisfied the claim limitation of
spreading ink accumulation based on printhead movement. While it
is undoubtedly true that the printhead of Taylor moved into the
servicing region of the printer, it cannot be said that spreading
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