Court Opinion

ID: 9470472
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:07:13.582853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:55.360788
License: Public Domain

FRIEDMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would affirm the Board’s decision sustaining the rejection of the claimed invention as obvious under section 103.
The appellant’s primary claim is for “[a]n educational and recreational mathematical device,” namely, an endless band upon which are imprinted numbers in a particular sequence derived from the application of an algorithm. Subordinate claims describe the band as an article of apparel, part of a hat or cap, or an article of jewelry.
The algorithm is not patentable and “is treated as though it were a familiar part of the prior art.” Parker v. Flook, 437 U.S. 584, 592, 98 S.Ct. 2522, 2526, 57 L.Ed.2d 451 (1978). Similarly, the particular numbers produced by an abstract solution of the algorithm cannot themselves be claimed, although the practical application of those numbers may be patentable. See In re Meyer, 688 F.2d 789, 215 USPQ 193 (Cust. & Pat.App.1982); In re Abele, 684 F.2d 902, 214 USPQ 682 (Cust. & Pat.App.1982). The issue under section 103 is whether, to one of ordinary skill in the art of developing algorithms and applying their product for educational or recreational purposes, it would have been obvious to apply the algorithm by displaying the result of its solution on a continuous band, as the appellant disclosed in his patent application. The Board correctly answered that question affirmatively-
The Wittcoff patent teaches the use of a hatband to display numbers as an “educational or game-playing device.” Although there are differences between the display of numbers in appellant’s invention and their display in Wittcoff, it would have been obvious from Wittcoff for one of ordinary skill in the art who wanted to use the numbers the algorithm produced for appellant’s purposes, to display them on a continuous band. Indeed, one of the appellant’s subordinate claims displays the numbers on a hat or cap.
The display of the numbers on a band or other object that permits them to be shown in a series without a particular beginning or end would have been obvious even without Wittcoff. The numbers can be used for the recreational and educational purposes the appellant claims merely by arranging them in a continuous series. They do not need to be placed on an “endless band” as the appellant claimed. In fact, at oral argument the appellant conceded that the same result his invention accomplishes also could be accomplished by placing the numbers in a continuous series upon a cube or other shape, or even by writing them in a circle upon a flat surface. The precise nature of the object on which the numbers are placed is thus of little importance. The only matter that is of significance — the arrangement of the numbers as a continuous series— would have been obvious to anyone of ordinary skill in the art who knew the algorithm.
In In re Miller, 418 F.2d 1392, 164 USPQ 46 (Oust. & Pat.App.1969), as the court points out, the court determined that there was “a new and unobvious functional relationship” between the measuring receptacles and the descriptions and legends on *1388them. In the present case, unlike Miller, I do not think that the “functional relationship” between the numbers resulting from the application of the algorithm and their display upon the continuous band was new and unobvious.