Appeal No. 2002-0572 Page 5
Application No. 09/302,584
Also of interest is that Andrews discloses that the connector includes polarizing
keying walls 36 that cooperate with keying notches 76 of the card to ensure that the
card can only be inserted into the connector slot in one way.
The test for obviousness is not whether the features of the secondary reference
may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the
claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references.
Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have
suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art. In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 435, 208
USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
In the present case, the combined teachings of Goshorn and Andrews provide
ample support for the examiner’s conclusion (answer, page 4) that it would have been
obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify the notches of Goshorn to provide a
polarizing function to ensure that the card can be connected to a mating connector in
only one way. Although the examiner has not set forth precisely how Goshorn is to be
modified for this purpose, it is clear to us that in applying the teachings of Andrews, a
polarizing function for the notches of Goshorn may be accomplished by simply
offsetting the centrally located notch E4 to one side. The requisite suggestion for this
modification is found in the showing in Figure 7 of Andrews of a medial keying notch 76
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