Appeal No. 2004-0731 Page 8
Application No. 09/957,059
disposable or can be reused after replenishment. From this
express teaching of Crossley that the phone can either be
disposable or reusable, we agree with the examiner that an
artisan would have been motivated to make the reusable phone of
Norimatsu disposable by rendering it inoperative subsequent to
its contracted period of use.
However, we agree with appellants that because the phone of
Norimatsu is disclosed as being a rental phone, we find no
teaching or suggestion of providing the phone with a remaining
time indicator for indicating the calling time remaining, since
the phone of Norimatsu is a rental phone that does not have any
limitations of calling time but rather is useable for a rental
period of time.
From all of the above, we find that the examiner has failed
to establish a prima facie case of obviousness of claim 12.
Accordingly, the rejection of independent claim 12 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) is reversed. As claims 14-21 depend from
independent claim 12, the rejection of claims 14-21 under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as reversed.
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