Appeal 2007-1404
Application 10/212,316
receiving vehicle (e.g., col. 9, l. 4 et seq.). Vehicular warnings may be
provided by a “heads up” display of graphics. Col. 6, ll. 61-63.
Dunning further teaches that using headlights or other visible light
sources provides the advantage of double use -- for visual illumination and
warning, in addition to inter vehicle communications. Dunning col. 4, ll. 10-
24. The reference notes, however, that the invention does not require
transmission and reception of visible light. Infrared light sources and
sensors may be used. Col. 10, ll. 43-53.
The emitting, observing, and displaying steps of instant claim 7 are
described by DC. The “optically communicating,” modulating, and
demodulating steps differ from the preferred embodiments of Dunning only
in the type of light used for communication. Dunning also, however,
expressly teaches that infrared light may be used, and expressly teaches that
the same light sources may be used for visual illumination and for inter
vehicle communications.
To be nonobvious, an improvement must be “more than the
predictable use of prior art elements according to their established
functions.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 127 S. Ct. 1727, 1740, 82
USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (2007). “[W]hen a patent ‘simply arranges old
elements with each performing the same function it had been known to
perform’ and yields no more than one would expect from such an
arrangement, the combination is obvious.” KSR, 127 S. Ct. at 1740, 82
USPQ2d at 1395-96 (quoting Sakraida v. Ag Pro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 282
(1976)).
The DC and Dunning references, considered together, would have
suggested dual use of the night vision illumination system described by DC,
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