Appeal No. 97-0767
Application No. 08/383,996
As to the appellant’s contention that Fox fails to expressly
state that his envelope or bottle is hermetically sealed and
lacks a means to inject air therein, we observe that
nonobviousness cannot be established by attacking the references
individually when the rejection is predicated upon a combination
of prior art disclosures. See In re Merck & Co. Inc., 800 F.2d
1091, 1097, 231 USPQ 375, 380 (Fed. Cir. 1986). Here, the
rejection is based on the combined teachings of Fox and Tanigawa,
and it is Tanigawa who clearly teaches that the hollow striker
section should be sealed and provided with a valve to inject air
under pressure therein. In this regard, it should be noted that
all of the features of the secondary reference need not be bodily
incorporated into the primary reference (see In re Keller, 642
F.2d at 425, 208 USPQ at 881) and the artisan is not compelled to
blindly follow the teaching of one prior art reference over the
other without the exercise of independent judgment (Lear Siegler,
Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 733 F.2d 881, 889, 221 USPQ 1025, 1032
(Fed. Cir. 1984)).
It is also the appellant’s contention that the relied on
prior art does not teach a bat having trampoline-like
characteristics. We must point out, however, that all the
utilities or benefits of the claimed invention need not be
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