Appeal No. 2003-0460
Application No. 09/783,428
The examiner is of the opinion that the collective teachings
of Kato and Ozawa would have been suggestive of the fuel supply
system of claim 1. In particular, the examiner determines that
it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the
art to locate the fuel pump and fuel rails of Kato following the
teaching of Ozawa since this compact fuel distribution system was
known in the V-type engine art (final rejection, page 2).
While we fully comprehend the examiner’s point of view, we
conclude that the claimed invention would not have been obvious
based upon the evidence before us.
Appellant seeks to solve an air problem present with a known
outboard motor incorporating a direct injection system
(specification, pages 1 through 3). The outboard motor of Kato
appears to be of the aforementioned prior art type, as
acknowledged by appellant (main brief, page 3). In seeking to
overcome the deficiency of the Kato teaching, vis-a-vis the
content of claim 1, the examiner turns to the Ozawa patent.
However, like appellant (main brief, page 4), we readily discern
that the Ozawa document does not address a fuel supply system for
supplying fuel to a direct injected outboard motor, characterized
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