Appeal No. 2005-2489
Application No. 09/949,736
references. Accordingly, we affirm the examiner’s decision
rejecting claims 34 through 36 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
As evidence of obviousness of the subject matter defined by
claim 41, the examiner relies on the combined teachings of
Gartner and Karlson. The examiner finds that Gartner teaches
essentially the subject mater defined by claim 41, except for the
claimed joy stick. To account for this deficiency, the examiner
relies on Karlson to show a laser control system in which a joy
stick is used to control “X and Y movement of the X-Y table”.
See column 5, lines 24-38.
Given that Gartner teaches a need to control the X and Y
movement of a target plate, we concur with the examiner that one
of ordinary skill in the art would have been led to employ the
joy stick taught by Karlson in the laser ablation system of
Gartner, motivated by a desire to improve the control of X and Y
movement of its target plate.
Thus, having considered all of the evidence of record, we
determine that the preponderance of evidence weighs most heavily
in favor of obviousness. Hence, we concur with the examiner that
the claimed subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art in view of the applied prior art
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