Appeal 2007-1743
Application 10/131,550
locations,7 the skilled artisan would nonetheless readily glean from Vaios
that such surveillance monitoring would have been, at the very least, an
obvious alternative to using the system for video conferencing.
For at least these reasons, we find that it would have been obvious to
the skilled artisan at the time of the invention to combine Vaios with
McDougall.
Lastly, we note that Appellant has not persuasively rebutted the
Examiner’s prima facie case of obviousness of representative claim 1 for yet
another reason. In the Briefs, Appellant merely alleges that the cited prior
art lacks various enumerated limitations found in the independent claims.
Although these specific limitations are listed on Pages 14-17 of the Brief and
Page 6 of the Reply Brief, there is no specific supporting analysis explaining
why these specific limitations are not taught or suggested by the references
apart from a mere conclusory assertion. Such conclusory statements,
however, hardly persuasively rebut the Examiner’s prima facie case of
obviousness.8
7 We emphasize that we are merely assuming this position solely for the sake
of argument. As we indicated previously, we find that McDougall amply
discloses video “surveillance” giving the term its broadest reasonable
interpretation. See P. 7, supra, of this opinion.
8 See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (“A statement which merely points out
what a claim recites will not be considered an argument for separate
patentability of the claim.”); see also 37 C.F.R. § 1.111 (noting that replies
to Office actions must specifically point out how the claim language
patentably distinguishes from the cited references); In re Baxter Travenol
Labs., 952 F.2d 388, 391, 21 USPQ2d 1281, 1285 (Fed. Cir. 1991) ("It is not
the function of [the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit] to
examine the claims in greater detail than argued by an appellant, looking for
nonobvious distinctions over the prior art.”).
10
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013