Appeal No. 2004-0750 Page 6
Application No. 09/992,223
paragraphs that neither Kubo alone nor Kubo in concert with Takeshima would have
rendered the steps in issue obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, the rejection of
claims 12-14 is not sustained.
Independent claim 15, which is directed to a system for controlling an internal
combustion engine, recites a controller for operating the engine in accordance with the
two steps recited in method claim 1. This claim has been rejected as being
unpatentable over Deeba in view of Kubo. As explained on pages 9 and 10 of the
Answer, Deeba is cited for disclosing a control system that includes all of the steps
except the two from claim 1, and Kubo for the same proposition applied in the same
manner with regard to these two steps, as was the case with claim 1. The examiner
concludes that it would have been obvious “to have utilized the teaching by Kubo in the
system of Deeba et al., since the use thereof would have provided a more accurate
value of NOx storage efficiency for the device.” No evidence has been offered in
support of this conclusion. We will not sustain this rejection on the basis of the same
reasoning advanced against the rejection of claim 1.
CONCLUSION
None of the rejections is sustained.
The decision of the examiner is reversed.
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