Appeal No. 2004-0507
Application No. 09/476,862
claim 7 that, to whatever extent Appellant may be correct that
Shinada does disclose a CD-R disk, no such limitation appears in
claim 7 as pointed out by the Examiner (Answer, page 10).
As to Appellant’s arguments directed to the alleged lack of
motivation for the Examiner’s proposed combination of Shinada and
Landry, we find no error in the Examiner’s position as
articulated at page 8 of the Answer. In our view, Appellant’s
arguments unpersuasively focus on the individual differences
between the limitations of claim 7 and each of the applied
references. It is apparent, however, from the Examiner’s line of
reasoning in the Answer, that the basis for the obviousness
rejection is the combination of Shinada and Landry. One cannot
show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where
the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re
Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981); In re
Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir.
1986).
In other words, while Appellant contends (Brief, page 4;
Reply Brief, page 5) that Landry lacks a teaching of suspending
system operation dependent on buffer capacity, this feature is
provided by Shinada. Further, although Appellant argues (id.)
that Shinada fails to disclose that suspension of operation is
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