Appeal No. 2001-1444
Application No. 08/994,706
clarifying that the principles of “common knowledge” and “common
sense” may only be applied to analysis of evidence, rather than
be a substitute for evidence. The court has also recently
expanded their reasoning on this topic in In re Thrift, 298 F.3d
1357, 1364, 63 USPQ2d 2002, 2006-07 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
We further agree with Appellants that, even assuming,
arguendo, that the Examiner’s supposition as to the well known
aspects of equalizing impedances for maximum damping is taken as
fact, to equalize impedances in Yamashita would be directly
contrary to the explicit teachings of the reference. As clearly
set forth in Yamashita (column 5, lines 10-64 and column 9, lines
22 through column 10, line 14), the principle of operation of
this reference, which involves the generation of a reflection
offsetting wave, depends on the mismatching of impedances, not
the equalization of impedances.
In a similar vein, we find nothing in Yamashita’s
illustration in Figure 4 and the accompanying description
beginning at column 10, line 32, cited by the Examiner in support
of the obviousness rejection, that would convince us that the
skilled artisan would be led to equalize impedances as claimed.
Although Yamashita’s Figure 4 illustrates a family of curves, one
of which depicts the results of an approximate impedance
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