Appeal No. 2003-1234
Application 09/755,519
Nevertheless, we conclude that claim 1 would have been
obvious over Eckels. Although we have no documentary evidence,
we find that the examiner is correct "that it is inherent in the
process of taking notes for a student to listen to the lecturer
and make notes of the lecturer's comments" (FR2). More
specifically, we find that the steps of a student listening for
mention of a benzene ring in a lecture in the field of chemistry,
drawing a benzene ring by hand, and writing lecture commentary
adjacent the benzene ring were well known in the prior art of
note taking by chemistry students. Eckels discloses that "[i]n
many businesses, recording various data on a map, chart, graph or
the like requires repetative [sic] actions of the physical
activity of adding one or more signs, symbols or indicia to the
record being kept" (col. 1, lines 12-15). Eckels further
discloses that "[c]hemists may use a number of symbols in the
many types of writings required of them" (col. 1, lines 25-27)
and "[f]or the chemical industries of art, each writer may have
specialized symbols, and such symbols may be secured to the end
of the different lengths of arms" (col. 3, lines 25-28) where one
such symbol is benzene (Figs. 7 and 8; col. 3, lines 28-30).
Thus, Eckels teaches that chemical writers may use symbol stamps
to take the place of repetitively drawing the symbols. One of
ordinary skill in the art would have known to use the symbol
stamps in Eckels in any kind of writing, including writing by a
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