Appeal No. 2004-0547
Application No. 09/536,894
“[t]he secretary terminal 101 of the Yamadera patent is intended to be manipulated only
by an actual human secretary. See Col. 5, lines 36-61. However, in the claimed
invention, a human intervenor (sic) at the base video unit is not required to route the call
to the remote video unit.” (emphasis original). Further, on page 8 of the brief appellants
assert that the Lazik involves a remotely accessible audio phone system which “[u]pon
connection to the master unit 10, the remote caller can enter a satellite unit ID and be
‘patched through’ … to one or more of the satellite units.”
The examiner responds to these arguments on pages 11 and 12 of the answer.
On page 11 of the answer, the examiner recognizes that Yamadera teaches manual
transfer of a video call from a secretary terminal to one or more executive terminal.
However, the examiner cites In re Venner 120 USPQ 192, 1994 (CCPA 1958), stating,
“it is well settled that it is not ‘invention’ to broadly provide a mechanical or automatic
means to replace manual activity which has accomplished the same result.” Further, on
page 12 of the answer the examiner states:
Lazik is relied upon to teach the feature of allowing a remote caller to
select one of a plurality of remote communication units for establishing
communication through a master unit without human intervention so that the
remote caller is capable of selecting a particular remote communication unit for
establishing a communication by entering a code, thereby makes it more user
friendly in permitting local system control from a remote calling location (Col. 3,
lines 54 and col. 5 line 37 through col. 7 line 16)… Thus, it would have been
obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was made
to modify Yamadera in providing automatic means for replacing manual activity,
as per teaching of Lazik, in order to allow the remote caller to select one of a
plurality of remote communication units connected with a maser unit without
human intervention, thereby making it more user friendly.
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