Appeal No. 96-3130 Application 08/225,653 we must point out that “[a]s long as some motivation or suggestion to combine the references is provided by the prior art taken as a whole, the law does not require that the references be combined for the reasons contemplated by the inventor” (In re Beattie, 974 F.2d 1309, 1312, 24 USPQ2d 1040, 1042 (Fed. Cir. 1992)) and all the utilities or benefits of the claimed invention need not be explicitly disclosed by the prior art references to render the claim unpatentable under section 103 (see In re Dillon, 919 F.2d 688, 692, 696, 16 USPQ2d 1897, 1901, 1904 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (in banc), cert. denied, 500 U.S. 904 (1991)). See also In re Kemps, 97 F.3d 1427, 1429, 40 USPQ2d 1309, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (“all the benefits of the claimed invention need not be explicitly disclosed to render the claim unpatentable under section 103"). We also observe that “[t]he fact that appellant has recognized another advantage which would flow naturally from following the suggestion of the prior art cannot be the basis for patentability when the differences would otherwise have been obvious” (Ex parte Obiaya, 227 USPQ 58, 60 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 1985), aff'd.mem., 795 F.2d 1017 (Fed. Cir. 1986)). Similarly, the mere recognition of latent properties in an otherwise obvious product in the prior art does not render such a product 10Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007