Appeal No. 2004-0361 Page 7
Application No. 09/854,156
reasons, suggestions, or motivations to make the modifications based on knowledge within the
skill of the art at the time of the invention. We conclude that the Examiner has failed to establish
a prima facie case of obviousness with respect to each of the obviousness rejections.
OTHER ISSUES
We note that we are not granting Appellant a patent, we are simply reversing rejections.
See In re Arkley, 455 F.2d 586, 589, 172 USPQ 524, 527 (CCPA 1972). It may well be that there
is a proper basis for rejecting the claims; however, the Examiner has not made it here. Id.
Specifically, we bring Kadlic to the attention of the Examiner and Appellant. This
reference had been combined with Williams to reject claim 25. Kadlic was only applied for its
teaching of allowing a player to select cards for partial hands. But there is other evidence within
Kadlic, not relied upon by the Examiner, which calls into question the patentability of the
independent claims and possibly other claims.
Kadlic describes a method of playing a poker card game. While the reference focuses on
draw poker, it indicates that the game can be applied to any variation of draw poker or stud poker
(col. 5, ll. 66-67). One variation of play is of particular interest, the variation called Pick 144
(col. 7, l. 57 to col. 9, l. 23). See, for instance, the discussion of wager allocation for step b) (col.
7, l. 57 to col. 8, l. 3), hand selection for step a) (col. 8, ll. 3-7), the selection and duplication of
the partial hand for claim step c) (col. 8, ll. 30-34), and the sequence of dealing and displaying
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