Appeal No. 2006-1272
Application No. 10/104,615
the need to comply with state legal requirements that a registered pharmacist provide
cognitive or consultative services that include verification of prescription information)
[answer, pages 4, 5; see also Liff, col. 12, lines 5-23]. We agree with the examiner that the
necessity of complying with state statutory requirements provides a powerful and compelling
motivation for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the references in the manner
suggested by the examiner.
IX. Appellants further argue that neither Echerer, Liff, nor any of the other cited art
discloses or suggests that it is even possible to have a system for providing pharmaceutical
services that includes a verification video-conferencing station within each of a plurality of
remote sites as recited by the pending claims, much less that it would be desirable to do so.
[supplemental brief, page 10, 3rd paragraph].
In response, we note that Appellants have admitted that “Echerer is already a remote
pharmacist system” [supplemental brief, pages 9, cont’d page 10, 1st paragraph]. The
examiner relies upon Echerer as teaching the use of a plurality of video-conferencing stations
for visual and audio communication between a central site and a remote site [answer, pages 3
and 11]. The examiner relies upon Liff for the feature of a single pharmacist who provides
verification as part of the cognitive/consultative services without being physically located at
the dispensing site [see answer, page 13, 2nd paragraph]. We note that Liff also teaches a
remote pharmacist concept that implements two-way video conferencing between a first
station where the pharmacist is located and at least one second (remote) station where the
technician is located [Liff, col. 19, line 28, and col. 19, lines 34-49]. As taught by Liff, the
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