Appeal No. 2003-0502
Application No. 09/280,955
conclusion of obviousness merely because the claimed subject matter represents a
rearrangement of parts vis à vis the prior art if that rearrangement results in an
unobvious structural advantage over the prior art.
Further, Yomogihara does not remedy the deficiency of APA because, as
explained by appellants, and clearly shown in Figure 4 of Yomogihara, the row of
connection terminals 27 in Yomogihara is perpendicular to, rather than parallel to, the
long side of the IC 22. Accordingly, the combination of Yomogihara and APA does not
result in the instant claimed subject matter. Moreover, the examiner admits as much, at
page 4 of the answer, but states that this is not persuasive “because the terminals
arranged by the shorter side or longer sides of driving ICS, in a row perpendicular or
column parallel to the longer or short sides of the driving ICS are not change the
function [sic] of display apparatus device, but they are [sic] only change the
arrangement of the system.”
The examiner’s position is clearly erroneous. If the examiner’s position was to
be adopted, the patent laws, as we know them, would be turned on their head because
it would deny patentability to all new and unobvious structural arrangements of
elements if the final structure resulted in a function already produced by a prior art
structure. Clearly, novel and unobvious structural arrangements may result in
patentable inventions, especially when that new arrangement results in a significant
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