Appeal 2007-3126
Application 10/359,275
reason for combining the elements in the manner claimed.” In re Icon Health and
Fitness Inc., 496 F.3d 1374, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (quoting KSR, 127 S. Ct. at
1742). See also Leapfrog, 485 F.3d at 1162 (holding it “obvious to combine the
Bevan device with the SSR to update it using modern electronic components in
order to gain the commonly understood benefits of such adaptation, such as
decreased size, increased reliability, simplified operation, and reduced cost”);
Dystar, 464 F.3d at 1368 (“[A]n 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.”).
Furthermore, a reference may be understood by the artisan to be suggesting a
solution to a problem that the reference does not discuss. See KSR, 127 S. Ct. at
1742 (“The second error of the Court of Appeals lay in its assumption that a person
of ordinary skill attempting to solve a problem will be led only to those elements of
prior art designed to solve the same problem. . . . Common sense teaches . . . that
familiar items may have obvious uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many
cases a person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents
together like pieces of a puzzle. . . . A person of ordinary skill is also a person of
ordinary creativity, not an automaton.”).
As no other evidence has been cited by Appellants or the Examiner to
establish the level of skill in the art, we find that the level of skill in the art is
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