Appeal 2007-1549
Application 10/632,017
Gardner shows a radial leg (30) in sliding contact with an inner surface of
the ball race (26) (Ans. 6) and Appellants do not specifically dispute this
finding. To use the sliding ring of Gardner as “an alternative design
consideration for mounting a sealing bellows to the ball race without
embedding the sliding ring” (Ans. 6) in the sealing arrangement of Yao
would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of
Appellants’ invention.
While there must be some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning to support the legal conclusion of obviousness, "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." KSR
Int'l. Co. v. Teleflex lnc., 127 S.Ct. 1727, 1741, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396
(2007).
When a work is available in one field of
endeavor, design incentives and other market
forces can prompt variations of it, either in the
same field or a different one. If a person of
ordinary skill can implement a predictable
variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability.
For the same reason, if a technique has been
used to improve one device, and a person of
ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it
would improve similar devices in the same
way, using the technique is obvious unless its
actual application is beyond his or her skill.
Id. at 1740, 82 USPQ2d at 1396. We must ask whether the improvement is
more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their
established functions. Id. Here, the substitution of Yao’s sliding ring with
that of Gardner does not appear to be difficult for one of ordinary skill in the
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