Appeal No. 2003-1509
Application 09/853,575
a conclusion. It is not sufficient to make up motivation, no
matter how plausible it may sound, without supporting the reasons
with factual evidence that can be reviewed. As to the examiner's
claim interpretation, we may agree that the "optical switch" in
the preamble is not positively recited in the combination, but
the optical pickup optically coupled to the luminescent material
is recited in the body of the claim and cannot be ignored or
dismissed without evidence of obviousness.
New ground of rejection pursuant to 37 CFR § 1.196(b)
Claims 1-3, 5, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Crossland and Appeldorn '876. The
teachings of Crossland have been previously discussed. Appeldorn
'876, Fig. 10, discloses an LCD comprised of a liquid crystal
shutter (LCS) array 50 illuminated by a substantially parallel
array 46 of notched optical fibers 48 (col. 12, lines 39-44).
The level of ordinary skill in the art is evidenced by the
references. See In re Oelrich, 579 F.2d 86, 91, 198 USPQ 210,
214 (CCPA 1978) ("the PTO usually must evaluate both the scope
and content of the prior art and the level of ordinary skill
solely on the cold words of the literature"); In re GPAC Inc.,
57 F.3d 1573, 1579, 35 USPQ2d 1116, 1121 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (the
Board did not err in adopting the approach that the level of
skill in the art was best determined by the references of
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