Ex Parte Moore - Page 11

                Appeal 2007-0610                                                                               
                Application 09/766,357                                                                         

                necessary for a court to look to interrelated teachings of multiple patents; the               
                effects of demands known to the design community or present in the                             
                marketplace; and the background knowledge possessed by a person having                         
                ordinary skill in the art, all in order to determine whether there was an                      
                apparent reason to combine the known elements in the fashion claimed by                        
                the patent at issue.”  Id. at 1740-41, 82 USPQ2d at 1396.  The Court noted                     
                that “[t]o facilitate review, this analysis should be made explicit.”  Id., citing             
                In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988, 78 USPQ2d 1329, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2006)                           
                (“[R]ejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere                              
                conclusory statements; instead, there must be some articulated reasoning                       
                with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of                             
                obviousness”).   However, “the analysis need not seek out precise teachings                    
                directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court                   
                can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of                         
                ordinary skill in the art would employ.”  Id.                                                  
                                                                                                              
                      D. Analysis                                                                              
                      The patentability of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (2002) depends                     
                on whether the claimed subject matter is obvious over Kent and Cornuejols                      
                      The Examiner found that Kent shows all the steps and limitations of                      
                the claimed method except the use of one of a transportation model, network                    
                model, or generalized network model as the model to optimize                                   
                customization of the layout area.  FF 1 and 2.  Appellant did not traverse                     
                these findings.  FF 4.  Accordingly, we find that Kent shows (a) developing                    
                models to predict customer purchases; (b) scoring customers for each                           
                predictive model; (c) determining specific layout areas; and (d) determining                   

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