Appeal No. 2003-0622 Page 8
Application No. 09/974,545
appellant’s invention to provide large aircraft with automatic landing systems, and it is
our opinion that even if this were considered to be an “autopilot,” the deficiency
discussed above with regard to the Section 102 rejection would not be alleviated. It is
our view that suggestion does not exist in the applied references which would have
motivated one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the Borthayre ‘842 system in such a
manner as to meet the terms of the claim.
Independent claim 18 is directed to a signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying
a program of machine-readable instructions executable by a hijacking intervention
module “aboard an aircraft” which performs the same method recited in claim 1. Both
of the rejections applied against this claim suffer from the same shortcoming that was
discussed above with regard to claim 1. In addition, neither Borthayre ‘842 nor Auto
737 disclose or teach an on-board module which performs the required steps in
response to a signal-bearing medium tangibly embodying a program of machine-
readable instructions nor, in our view, would the evidence adduced by the examiner and
applied to this claim have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that such be
incorporated in the system disclosed by Borthayre ‘842. The rejections of independent
claim 18 and dependent claims 19-22, 28 and 32 under Sections 102 and 103 are not
sustained.
We reach the same conclusion, for the same reasons as were advanced against
claim 18, with regard to the like rejections of independent claim 33, which is directed to
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