Appeal 2007-1913
Application 10/299,661
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.
ANALYSIS
The Appellant does not argue any of the claims separately. The Appeal
Brief argues that claims 6, 7, 12, 16, 22, 27, 28, 37, 38, 43, 47-53, 58, 59, 68, 69,
74, 76-80, 85, 86, 95, 96, 101, 105-111, 115, and 116 (rejections 2-5 above) are
patentable, but only by virtue of their respective dependence from independent
claims 1, 32, 63, and 90. For that reason, we treat claim 1 as representative of all
appealed claims, and claims 1-119 and 149-156 stand or fall together. See 37
C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii). See also In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 590, 18 USPQ2d
1089, 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
Appellant argues that “Perl does not explicitly disclose, among other things,
the recited ‘second recess portion’ associated with its bottles” (Br. 20). In
addition, Appellant asserts that there is no suggestion or motivation in either Perl
or Ammarell to combine or modify the alleged teachings of the references in the
9
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013