Appeal No. 2006-1272
Application No. 10/104,615
RCD units 265A-265D. If they are in the same facility, the RPH workstation
264 can be linked to the RCD units 265A-D and an RCD cabinet 266 via a
local area network (LAN) 268. In this configuration, a patient presents a
prescription to a technician at one of the available RCD terminals 265A-
265D. At this terminal, a pharmacy technician performs steps 1-3. The results
are transmitted over the network to the RPH workstation, and the pharmacist
at the RPH performs steps 4-6. After the pharmacist approves the transaction,
the technician at the RCD unit performs steps 7-10.
As pointed out by the examiner, Liff discloses that if a problem arises the pharmacist
can decide to abort the dispensing procedure [Liff col. 13, line 23; answer, page 12]. Liff
also discloses the use of a “dispensing party” (i.e., a pharmacy technician) who retrieves the
prescription drugs from the “Remote Control Dispenser” (RCD) “for transfer to the patient”
[col. 5, line 34].
II. Appellants argue there is simply no disclosure in any of the cited references of a
teaching or suggestion to integrate them in such a way that a pharmacist at a central location
is allowed to visually verify prescription information for a technician who is dispensing the
prescription at a remote site [reply brief, page 2, supplemental brief pages 7 and 8].
The examiner responds [answer, page 11, 1st paragraph]:
Echerer teaches the use of video-conferencing station for visual and
audio communication between remote parties (i.e. pharmacist, patients, etc.)
and when combined with Liff, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary
skill in the art at the time the invention was made to provide a video-
telecommunications station for use by a single remote pharmacist as a
verification video-conferencing station to enable visual and audio
communication by the pharmacist with plural remote locations and to allow
the pharmacist to perform services such as verifying the prescription, drug
utilization overview, verify correct labeling, provide counseling to the patient,
for example see Liff col. 11 line 35 to col. 13 line 42.
Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the
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