Appeal Number: 2006-1773
Application Number: 10/051,000
they are in the same or related fields of technology, the nature of the
advance made by the applicant, and the maturity and congestion of the
field.
In re Johnston, 435 F.3d 1381, 1385, 77 USPQ2d 1788, 1790 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
Nonfunctional descriptive material cannot render nonobvious an invention
that would have otherwise been obvious. In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336, 1339, 70
USPQ2d 1862, 1864 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Cf. In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381, 1385, 217
USPQ 401, 404 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (when descriptive material is not functionally
related to the substrate, the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention
from the prior art in terms of patentability).
Differences of spacing in lines drawn on printed paper are generally obvious
to a person of ordinary skill in the art (See In re Cavrich, 59 CCPA 883, 451 F.2d
1091, 172 USPQ 121 (CCPA 1971) in which the distinctions between the groups
of spaced lines recited in the appealed claims and the groups of spaced lines
disclosed in the prior art were held to be of minor importance, and that the
modifications would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the pattern
drafting art.)
“[T]he steps comprising the process are the essential features for
consideration in determining the right of appellants to a patent – not the particular
material to which the process is applied nor the particular substance obtained by its
application.” In re Fahrni, 41 CCPA 768, 771, 210 F.2d 302, 303, 100 USPQ 388,
390 (CCPA 1954).
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