Appeal 2007-1595
Application 09/751,858
1 Inc.'s Safety and Health Program that has been implemented to reduce incident
2 rates, and, as part of this program, Teksid Aluminum Foundry Inc. "displays
3 recordable incidents per month and days since the last lost time incident
4 throughout the plant" (Answer 6-7). The Examiner contends that since both Jensen
5 and Pfeiffer are directed toward improving workplace safety, and that Jensen
6 automates the collection of data needed to calculate lapse of time between specific
7 events, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify
8 Jensen to determine an elapsed time between consecutive events, wherein the
9 output includes a value for each elapsed time in order to facilitate implementation
10 of a safety program that alerts workers to the days that have passed since the last
11 incident in order to provide these workers with a concrete goal to surpass in an
12 effort to improve workplace safety, as suggested by Pfeiffer (Answer 7-8).
13 The Appellants contend that neither reference shows performing date gap
14 analysis, control chart analysis or making workload adjustments, that Jensen’s
15 posting of a sign with the number of days since the last accident does not suggest a
16 date gap analysis with comparison to the average date gap, and that the official
17 notice regarding adjusting actual workload in contrast with workload data does not
18 make up for this deficiency (Br. 9-14).
19 Thus, the issue pertinent to this appeal is whether the rejection of claims 1-21
20 and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Jensen and Pfeiffer is proper. In
21 particular, the issue is whether the combined teachings of Jensen and Pfeiffer
22 would have led one having ordinary skill in the art to perform date gap analysis,
23 perform control chart analysis, or make workload adjustments.
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