Appeal No. 2006-0743 12
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,690
The examiner merely relies on Simon to establish that soft touch sensor technologies
such as capacitive sensing were known.8 See col. 2, lines 31-37; see also In re Lamberti, 545
F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976) (a reference must be considered for all that it
expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art). Marrazzo
recognizes that a trunk activation device must be readily operated by a small child. See col. 1,
lines 58-62. One of ordinary skill in the art would have known that touch sensitive pads which
sense the capacitance of the human body are extremely easy to operate. Therefore, one of
ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to use a capacitance sensing pad in the
system disclosed in Gager.
For the reasons set forth above, the rejection of claim 9 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Gager, Federspiel, Marrazzo and Simon is affirmed. Since
the patentability of claims 21 and 24 stands or falls with the patentability of claim 9, the rejection
of claims 21 and 24 as being unpatentable over the combination of Gager, Federspiel, Marrazzo
and Simon is also affirmed.
8 The appellant’s specification also acknowledges that touch sensitive pads which sense
the capacitance of the human body were known. See col. 4, lines 15-31.
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