Appeal No. 96-1904
Application 08/164,854
appreciated the breadth of claim 20 and the readability
thereof upon the applied prior art.
The obviousness rejections
At the outset we note that an obviousness question
cannot be approached on the basis that an artisan having
ordinary skill would have known only what they read in
references, because such artisan must be presumed to know
something about the art apart from what the references
disclose. See In re Jacoby,
309 F.2d 513, 516, 135 USPQ 317, 319 (CCPA 1962). Further, a
conclusion of obviousness may be made from common knowledge
and common sense of the person of ordinary skill in the art
without any specific hint or suggestion in a particular
reference. See In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385, 1390, 163 USPQ
545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
With the above in mind, we understand from the
“BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION” section of appellant’s
14
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