Appeal No. 2003-0238
Application No. 08/886,349
points to the short length of the references relied upon by the
examiner and concludes that they are not enabling for utilizing
the Internet as claimed, for sending a survey notification
message, and for producing a survey on-line. The length of a
reference, by itself, does not determine whether or not a
reference is enabling. A reference need not explain every detail
since it is speaking to those skilled in the art; what is
conventional knowledge will be read into the disclosure. If
appellant means to suggest that the skilled artisan would not
have been able to determine how to use the Internet in the
absence of explicit instruction, he has greatly underestimated
the level of the skilled artisan. See In re Sovish, 769 F.2d at
743, 226 USPQ at 774. As pointed out above, we have found that
the disclosures from the two references do teach or suggest all
of the limitations mentioned by appellant. Accordingly, we will
sustain the obviousness rejections of all of claims 1 through 23
and 25 through 51.
CONCLUSION
The decision of the examiner rejecting claims 1 through 23
and 25 through 51 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is affirmed.
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