Appeal No. 98-0806
Application No. 08/693,588
1370, 1372, 177 USPQ 526, 527 (CCPA 1973), Union Carbide Corp.
v. American Can Co., 724 F.2d 1567, 1572, 220 USPQ 584, 588-89
(Fed. Cir. 1984) and In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1578-79,
35 USPQ2d 1116, 1120-21 (Fed. Cir. 1995). This being the
case, the second prong of the test in Wood is satisfied and
Bellows is analogous art.
Turning to the question of whether it would have been
obvious to combine the teachings of Fritzberg and Bellows, the
appellant urges that the examiner did not identify in the
references any teaching, suggestion, or incentive to combine
their teachings and asserts that the examiner has used a
hindsight reconstruction of the references in arriving at a
conclusion of obviousness. We are unpersuaded by such a
contention. While the obviousness of an invention cannot be
established by combining the teachings of the prior art absent
some teaching, suggestion or incentive supporting the
combination (see ACS Hospital Systems, Inc. v. Montefiore
Hospital, 732 F.2d 1572, 1577, 221 USPQ 929, 933 (Fed. Cir.
1984)), this does not mean that the cited references or prior
must specifically suggest making the combination (B.F.
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