Appeal No. 2003-2165 Page 15
Application No. 09/067,093
Furthermore, "[t]he mere fact that the prior art may be modified in the manner
suggested by the Examiner does not make the modification obvious unless the prior art
suggested the desirability of the modification." In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1266, 23
USPQ2d 1780, 178-84 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (citing In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221
USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 1984)). Here, Messina "relates to a programmable
apparatus that identifies the contents of the driver licenses used for identification
purposes without any human error and allows the information carried by the driver
licenses to be transferred to a remote location for further identification purposes."
Col. 1, ll. 19-24. The apparatus "provides the means for not only rapidly authenticating
a document, such as a driver license, but also allowing the driver license to serve as a
convenient means for rapidly verifying that age requirements are satisfied in any
purchase at the point-of-transaction or in allowing ingress into establishments having
their own age requirements." Col. 14, ll. 59-65.
The passage of Messina cited by the examiner discloses that the reference "also
allows the information contained in the [apparatus] to be transferred to a remote or local
jurisdiction, via modem 26, to remote computer 28 so that the information may be
identified for criminal prosecution purposes or, conversely, for humanitarian purposes,
such as, for identifying preordained organ donors." Id. at ll. 50-55. Even in
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007