Appeal No. 2000-0117 Page 14
Application No. 08/770,676
In determining obviousness/nonobviousness, an invention
must be considered "as a whole," 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and
claims must be considered in their entirety. Medtronic, Inc.
v. Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc., 721 F.2d 1563, 1567, 220 USPQ 97,
101 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Furthermore, we must point out,
however, that all of the features of the secondary reference
need not be bodily incorporated into the primary reference
(see In re Keller, supra, at 642 F.2d 425, 208 USPQ 881) and
the artisan is not compelled to blindly follow the teaching of
one prior art reference over the other without the exercise of
independent judgment (see Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Aeroquip
Corp., 733 F.2d 881, 889, 221 USPQ 1025, 1032 (Fed. Cir.
1984)).
Upon our analysis of claim 8 and of the collective
teachings of the prior art references, we are not in agreement
with appellants. Matsushita discloses placing the elastic
members (10a, 10b) between the top and bottom sheets and
bonding the elastic to the bottom sheet except in the crotch
region so that “each of said portions may be cut at one
location so that these portions may be snapped back”
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