Appeal No. 2003-1966 Page 5
Application 08/789,959
the examiner, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the
Moriyama printer by replacing the four attached ink containers with an equal number of
separate containers, suggestion being found in Okazaki’s explicit teaching that this
provides the advantage of allowing an individual container to be replaced when the
colored ink therein is consumed under conditions when the consumed amount of the
respective inks fluctuate (Answer, page 3). The appellants have advanced several
arguments in opposition to this conclusion, none of which we find to be persuasive.
The appellants do not challenge the examiner’s opinion that Okazaki discloses a
plurality of separately replaceable ink containers. Their arguments are (1) that the
combined teachings of Moriyama and Okazaki fail to disclose or teach that each
container has a width parallel to the scan axis which is sized to be less than the width of
the non-print portion minus a sum of the widths of the other ink containers, and (2) that
there is no suggestion to combine the references in the manner proposed by the
examiner. With regard to the first argument, the appellants assert that the width of the
ink containers in Moriyama is perpendicular to the scan axis, rather that parallel to it
(Brief, pages 9 and 10). We do not agree, for it is quite clear to us from Figure 1 that
the width of each of the containers (6Y, 6M, 6C, 6Bk), as well as the widths of
composite element (6) comprising the four containers and of the secondary ink
container (60), extend parallel to the scan axis, which is indicated by guide shaft 3A; it
is the height of each container that is perpendicular to the scan axis.
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