Appeal No. 2006-0455 Page 10
Application No. 10/217,378
figures 1 and 2, is to allow for the disc drive to be oriented at
various angles between vertical and horizontal orientations.
From the disclosure of Iwata, we find that an artisan would have
be motivated to allow the disc drive of figures 10 or 11 of
Mitsui to be oriented at different angles from the vertical axis,
as recited in claim 1.
We are not persuaded by appellant’s assertion (brief, page
17) that “it is not apparent how providing such a rotatable disk
tray would improve the operability of the optical disk drive of
Mitsui, as the operation of floppy drives and optical disk drives
are different.” Whether the disc drive is an optical drive or a
floppy drive, an artisan would have been taught by Iwata that a
disc drive can be oriented at different angles from the vertical
axis.
Nor are we persuaded by appellant’s assertion (brief, page
18 and reply brief, pages 4 and 5) that the modification would
not have been obvious because it would be in direct conflict with
Mitsui’s express desire to reduce the size of the overall
computer. In Iwata, the adjustable disc drive is configured such
that the amount of space required in the computer for the disc
drive does not change when the disc drive is oriented between the
vertical or horizontal positions, or in the gradients between the
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