Appeal No. 2001-0813 Page 6
Application No. 08/825,994
17 controls the operation of display 32 regardless of whether the data is drawn from
ROM 18 or from IC card 6. In other words, appellants argue that IC card 6 is not
capable of exerting any type of control over the display device. Appellants also argue
that the CPU of IC card 6 is not disclosed as exerting any control over the display [brief,
pages 7-10].
The examiner responds that Appellants’ arguments are not commensurate in
scope with the claimed invention. Specifically, the examiner asserts that appellants are
arguing the presence of two separate data sources and controllers which can each
exert exclusive control over the display, whereas, claims 1 and 19 only recite a single
such controller. The examiner finds that a controller is inherently present to retrieve the
messages stored in memory 6 and to communicate with main controller 9. The position
of the examiner is that when memory 6 is attached in Watanabe, the display is
exclusively controlled by display controller 17 and the messages in memory 6.
Therefore, the examiner finds that display controller 17 and memory 6 have exclusive
control over display 32.
We will not sustain the examiner’s rejection of claims 1-20 because the examiner
has failed to establish a prima facie case of obviousness. The examiner’s rejection
relies on findings which are unsupported and speculative. More particularly, the
rejection reads the claimed central controller on control part 9 of Watanabe, the user
interface on display part 3 of Watanabe, and the claimed display controller on CPU 17
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