Appeal No. 2005-0823
Application No. 10/300,895 Page 39
problem solved by appellant. From the disclosures of IATA,
Cogswell and the statement the airlines were experiencing
increased fraud with respect to the voiding system (which implies
that there was fraud before the increase in fraud), we find that
an artisan was aware of the obviousness of having daily or next
day reporting, i.e., reporting that was more frequent than once a
week.
Nor are we persuaded by appellant's assertion (id.) that "if
generating over $1 billion of new revenue annually was so obvious
from the prior art, certainly the airlines would have done it
before the invention. But they did not." Appellant’s assertion
implies that if the invention were so obvious, someone would have
invented it by now. The assertion blurs the distinction between
35 U.S.C. § 103 and 35 U.S.C. § 102 by essentially asserting that
if the invention were so obvious, it would have been anticipated
by the prior art; but since the invention was not anticipated by
the prior art before appellant's invention, it is therefore non-
obvious; See Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co. Ltd., et al. v. Zenith
Radio Corp., 548 F.2d 88, 95, 193 USPQ2d 73, 79-80 (USCA 1977).
With regard to appellant's arguments (brief, page 15) with
respect to Brice, we make reference to our findings, supra, with
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