Appeal No. 2003-2116
Application No. 09/306,954
DISCUSSION
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) rejection of claims 14, 15 and 24 as
being anticipated by Stevenson
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In other words, there must be no
difference between the claimed invention and the reference
disclosure, as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in the field
of the invention. Scripps Clinic & Research Found. v. Genentech
Inc., 927 F.2d 1565, 1576, 18 USPQ2d 1001, 1010 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
Stevenson discloses an interactive audio system “which is
capable of tracking a principal listener and balancing the
reproduced sound in accordance with the position of the principal
listener” (column 2, lines 24 through 27). The system comprises
a surround sound signal processor 12, stereophonic speaker units
in the form of transceivers 14 and 16, a microprocessor 30 and
various audio sources including a television set 32, a tape deck
33, a compact disc player 35 and a radio 36. Stevenson describes
the listener tracking aspect of the system as follows:
[t]he system illustrated in FIG. 1 additionally
employs a pair of infrared sensors 18 and 22. These
sensors are coupled, respectively, through analog-to-
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