Appeal No. 2003-1474
Application No. 09/024,631
The examiner thus concludes that it would have been obvious
to one having ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention
was made to provide [Bakker] with the shaving head configuration
of Driessen for its benefits. (Id., page 3, lines 15-17).
The appellant urges that the combination of references does
not teach or suggest the claimed subject matter (Appeal Brief,
page 7, lines 8-10). More specifically, Bakker is said to fail to
teach the claimed shaving fields (Id., page 7, lines 18-24), while
Driessen is said to not show an arrangement of two, adjacent shear
plates proximate to a shaving field of the same type of hair entry
apertures in the other adjacent shear plate (Id., page 7, last
line through page 8).
The appellants position is without merit. The Appellants
argue each reference individually, instead of considering the art
as a whole. The test for obviousness involves consideration of
what the combined teachings, as opposed to the individual
teachings, of the references would suggest to those of ordinary
skill in the art. In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18 USPQ2d 1089,
1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991); In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425, 208 USPQ
871, 881 (CCPA 1981). If each reference alone disclosed the
claimed invention, the rejection would have properly included a
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102.
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