Appeal No. 2004-1224
Application No. 09/532,379
According to appellant, the invention is directed to a
method for efficiently and accurately measuring the progress of
achieving optimal motor vehicle characteristics that are
important to customer satisfaction (Brief, page 2). A copy of
representative independent claim 1 has been attached as an
Appendix to this decision.
The examiner has relied upon the following references as
evidence of obviousness:
Handbook of Industrial Engineering, Gavriel Salvendy (Salvendy),
2nd ed., Section IV(G), “Quality Assurance,” pp. 2219-2396, John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992;
Juran on Quality by Design, by J.M. Juran (Juran), pp. 462-467,
The Free Press, 1992.2
Claims 1, 11, 14 and 15 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph, as indefinite (Answer, page 6). Claims
1-23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over
Salvendy in view of Juran (id.). Upon careful consideration of
1(...continued)
application to the jurisdiction of the examiner, this matter
should be resolved.
2
2The examiner also cites the 1999 New Car Buying Guide,
published by Consumer Reports, pp. 54-57 and 123, June 1999, and
The Computer Science and Engineering Handbook by Tucker, p. 1520,
CRC Press, 1996, as “Prior Art of Record” (Answer, page 5).
However, since these references were not recited in the statement
of the rejection, we do not consider them as part of the
examiner’s evidence of obviousness. See In re Hoch, 428 F.2d
1341, 1342 n.3, 166 USPQ 406, 407 n.3 (CCPA 1970).
2
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