Appeal No. 2002-2155
Application No. 09/003,276
automatically preforms inversion, folding and stapling of a print
sheet to conceal the printed confidential image. The folding
mode selection key (242) of Kanou does not perform that same
function, and is not an equivalent of appellants' confidential
mode selection key (120).
Since we have determined that the teachings which would have
been fairly derived from Kanou would not have anticipated the
subject matter of claim 1 on appeal, we must refuse to sustain
the examiner's rejection of that claim under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b). It follows that the examiner's rejection of
claims 3, 5 through 7 and 9, which depend from claim 1, will also
not be sustained.
With regard to the examiner's rejection of claims 8 and 10
through 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) based on the collective
teachings of Kanou and Higashio, we observe that the examiner has
relied upon Higashio for a teaching of a stamping unit (200A) and
urged that it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in
the art at the time of appellants' invention to use the stamping
unit disclosed by Higashio as a reverse side image forming means
on the image forming system disclosed by Kanou in order to stamp
77
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007