Appeal No. 2000-2291
Application No. 08/777,721
the telephone set instead of the facsimile apparatus (col. 6,
lines 49-53).
Van Buskirk, as conceded by the Examiner and Appellant,
relates to an apparatus for producing signals representative of
complex time varying audio signals or musical waveforms by
synthesizing musical sounds. As depicted in Figure 5, the voice
synthesis function 504 generates one or more voices and receives
the output from white noise generator 512. The outputs of the
voice synthesis function are sent to voice mixer function 512
which generates the output process (col. 12, lines 1-14).
However, our review of the reference reveals no teaching related
to using the synthesized voice signals processed in the voice
mixer as an aural message corresponding to the operational state
of a facsimile apparatus, as recited in claim 1.
As the Federal Circuit states, "[t]he 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 n.14, 23 USPQ2d 1780, 1783-84 n.14 (Fed. Cir.
1992), citing In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125,
1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984). The court further reasons in Karsten Mfg.
Corp. v. Cleveland Gulf Co., 242 F.3d 1376, 1385, 58 USPQ2d 1286,
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