Appeal 2006-0342
Application 09/944,893
Furthermore, we do not agree with Appellants’ assertion that the
Examiner has impermissibly used hindsight in formulating the rejection. We
note Pogue specifically discloses a high-speed network where “[t]he
preferred operating environment is a transportation vehicle such as a car,
van, truck, bus, train or airplane” (col. 7, ll. 1-3). Pogue discloses the
advantages of such a vehicle network as follows:
For high-speed communications between many locations or
nodes in a vehicle, an optical fiber transmission medium
arranged in a star topology is less expensive and less
complicated than dedicated point-to-point connections or a
hard-wired electrical network.
(col. 7, ll. 36-41, emphasis added).
We note our reviewing court has recently reaffirmed that:
an implicit motivation to combine exists not only when a suggestion
may be gleaned from the prior art as a whole, but when the
‘improvement’ is technology-independent and the combination of
references results in a product or process that is more desirable, for
example because it is stronger, cheaper, cleaner, faster, lighter,
smaller, more durable, or more efficient … In such situations, the
proper question is whether the ordinary artisan possesses knowledge
and skills rendering him capable of combining the prior art
references.
DyStar Textilfarben GmbH & Co. Deutschland KG v. C.H. Patrick Co., 464
F.3d 1356, 1368, 80 USPQ2d 1641, 1651 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (emphasis in
original).
In the instant case, we find the ordinary artisan who possessed
knowledge and skills relating to vehicle computer systems would have been
capable of combining Pogue’s vehicle network system and Daniels’ data
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