Appeal No. 2003-2062
Application 09/853,568
information to be displayed, and also invoked the “printed
matter” doctrine to dispose of these claims (answer, pages 4-5),
we find no need to resort to such approaches, since Mayfield
alone discloses the subject matter of claims 4 through 11 and 13
through 16 on appeal. In that regard, we again note that after
repeated use of the same icon for the exact same medication for a
sufficient period of time (e.g., weeks, months or years), we are
convinced that most users would come to recognize that icon as
identifying or describing a particular medication, its uses,
symptoms treated, results of its consumption, etc., without
reference to another source. Likewise, after such repeated use,
the icon itself would be understood as being descriptive of the
particular medication because of the fact that a long term user
would immediately make a mental association regarding the
particular medication the icon represents. We again make note
that appellants’s own specification, in the paragraph bridging
pages 6 and 7, supports this conclusion.
As has been made clear by our reviewing Courts on numerous
occasions, anticipation or lack of novelty is the ultimate or
epitome of obviousness. See, in this regard, In re Fracalossi,
681 F.2d 792, 794, 215 USPQ 569, 571 (CCPA 1982); In re Pearson,
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